Wireless strength boosts Telus

Article Excerpt

TELUS $39.87 (Toronto symbol T; Shares outstanding: 619.0 million; Market cap: $24.6 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Dividend yield: 3.8%; www.telus.com) gets 55% of its revenue from its 7.9 million wireless subscribers across Canada. It also has 3.3 million phone customers, 1.4 million high-speed Internet users and 865,000 TV subscribers. In the three months ended June 30, 2014, Telus’s earnings per share rose 16.7%, to $0.63 from $0.54 a year earlier. Revenue increased 4.4%, to $2.95 billion from $2.83 billion. Wireless revenue rose 6.1%, thanks to new wireless subscribers and rising use of smartphones, which generate higher fees than regular cellphones. Revenue gained 2.4% at the wireline (land line) division, where an increase in Telus TV and high-speed Internet subscribers more than offset customers cancelling land lines and switching to wireless devices. The stock trades at 17.2 times Telus’s forecast 2014 earnings of $2.32 a share. However, its 2015 earnings could reach $2.71 a share, and the stock trades at a more reasonable…