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Telus Communications operating revenue fell 1.6% year over year to $2.4 billion, while net income dropped 2% to $280 million despite $14 million in income tax-related adjustments. Consolidated EBITDA decreased $52 million to $923 million due to lower revenues and higher restructuring costs.
Despite the decline in revenue, sub counts were on the rise for the Canadian MSO. Total customer connections increased 326,000 year over year to 11.9 million for TV, wireless, and data.
Wireless data revenues highlighted a strong Q3 for Telus as revenue increased $48 million, or 27% due to the increased integration of smartphones on the Telus network. ARPU for wireless data, however, took a 7.3% drop to $59.45.
Wireless also showed positive signs as 125,000 net subscribers were added in Q3’09. This is still a 29% drop from the net subscribers added in Q3’08, but a 13% improvement sequentially. Churn for wireless stayed relatively flat at 1.55% as opposed to 1.52% in Q3’08. EBITDA for wireless was $517 million, a 1.7% decrease. Overall, wireless totaled 6.4 million subscribers at the end of Q3’09.
Telus TV net additions were 22,000 to total 137,000 subs, a 117% increase over Q3’08. The substantial jump is due to the introduction of TELUS satellite TV service in June.
Network access lines dropped to 4.1 million, a 44,000 decrease.
Wireline revenue decreased $43 million, or 3.4% year over year to $1.2 billion, most of the loss coming from the voice sector. Data revenues increased $8 million to $524 million, or 1.6% year over year as high-speed net additions were up 9,000, which is still a decrease from the 13,000 additions in Q3’08. Postpaid churn decreased to 1.16%. Wireline EBITDA decreased by 9.6% to $406 million due to higher restructuring costs.
Total internet subscribers stayed flat at 1.2 million.
Free cash flow was $266 million, a $748 million increase over the same period a year ago due to the previous year’s payments for wireless services licenses.
Telus acquired Black’s Photo Corporation in Q3’09, thus helping increase its wireless external revenues to $4 million for the quarter.
CapEx increased $60 million to of $558 million for Q3’09.
Telus launched their next gen High-Speed Packet Access (HSPA) wireless network yesterday.