BCE Inc. (BCE) Q3 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Prepared Remarks

Questions and Answers

Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the BCE Q3 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, Deanna, and good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our call. With me here today are Mirko Bibic, BCE's President and CEO; and our CFO, Glen LeBlanc. You can find all our Q3 disclosure documents on the Investor Relations page of the bce.ca website, which we posted earlier this morning.

Before we begin, I want to draw your attention to our Safe Harbor statement on Slide 2, reminding you that today's slide presentation and 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’s continued execution excellence and customer-centric approach, combined with our unmatched leading broadband networks yielded a record 401,132 total broadband wireless and wireline net customer activations in Q3. Our disciplined focus on balancing market share growth and financial performance delivered healthy consolidated revenue growth of 3.2%, despite an ad recession causing pressure in media advertising and some continued pressures in the B2B sector.

Adjusted EBITDA grew a more modest 1.2% as we absorbed $38 million in exceptional storm related costs and inflationary pressures, while also funding record subscriber acquisitions. Hurricane Fionna, which devastated Canada's Atlantic region and Eastern Quebec in late September was the biggest storm to ever hit anywhere in Canada and our team stepped up like never before.

Our preparations ensured our core networks remained largely operational, but the damage to our infrastructure in the field was unprecedented. A huge thank you to our field, network and wireless operations teams who worked tirelessly to keep our customers connected. I also want to acknowledge every Bell employee, who supported our storm efforts, whether you are a part of service and restoration, managing customer inquiries, welcoming people in our stores to charge phones or news crews covering the story. Your focus on preparing and delivering for customers is greatly appreciated, and I'm so proud to be part of this dedicated and talented team.