BCE Inc. (BCE) Q2 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Prepared Remarks

Questions and Answers

Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Good morning ladies and gentlemen. And welcome to the BCE Q2 2022 Results Conference Call.

I would now like to turn the meeting over to Mr. Thane Fotopoulos. Please go ahead, Mr. Fotopoulos.

Thane Fotopoulos

Thank you, Paul and good morning, everyone and thank you for joining our call today. As usual, I'm here with Mirko Bibic, BCE's President and CEO; and our CFO, Glen LeBlanc. You can find all our Q2 disclosure documents on the Investor Relations page of the bce.ca website which we posted earlier this morning.

However, before we begin, I want to draw your attention to our Safe Harbor statement on Slide 2 of the presentation, remind you that today's remarks made during the call will include forward-looking information and therefore, are subject to risks and uncertainties. Results could differ materially. We disclaim any obligation to update forward-looking statements, except as required by law. Please refer to our publicly filed documents for more details on our assumptions and risks.

With that, I'll turn the call over to Mirko.

Mirko Bibic

Thank you, Thane and good morning, everyone. The Bell team continues to deliver for all the stakeholders we serve. We remain focused on our strategic plan. It's working. Q2 marked another quarter of consistent operational execution with a disciplined focus on balancing market share growth and financial performance. Our approach drove consolidated service revenue and adjusted EBITDA growth 3.8% and 4.6%, respectively.

These strong results are underpinned by our extensive and unprecedented network investments that are building unmatched broadband fiber 5G infrastructure in Canada and frankly, if not the world. By the end of this year, we'll have invested more than $14 billion since 2020, the highest ever over a 3-year period by Canadian Telecom. This includes planned CapEx for 2022 of approximately $5 billion which also represents peak spending by Canadian Telco in 1 single year. These massive investments are focused primarily on our FTTH and 5G wireless networks, our ongoing expansion into rural and remote communities and considerable spending on capacity and on resiliency.

With approximately 900,000 more new FTTP connections deployed this year, 80% of our midterm broadband Internet build-out plan comprising 10 million residential and business locations will be completed and 5G LTE network service will be available to more than 80% of Canadians. And recent events have illustrated the vital importance of communications networks and the role they play as an integral part in the lives of all Canadians. They have also illustrated the relevance of our corporate purpose which as you know, is to advance how Canadians connect with each other and the world. It's this purpose that guides us in how we design and how we build our networks to keep our customers at the forefront of all that we do.