TELUS Corporation (TU) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Prepared Remarks

Questions and Answers

Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Good day, everyone. Welcome to the TELUS 2022 Q4 Earnings Conference Call. I would like to introduce your speaker, Mr. Robert Mitchell. Please go ahead.

Robert Mitchell

Thanks, Carl. Hello, everyone. Thanks for joining us today. Our fourth quarter and year end 2022 results news release, MD&A and financial statements and detailed supplemental investor information were posted on our website this morning at telus.com/investors.

On our call today, we will begin with remarks by Darren and Doug. For the Q&A portion of our call, we will be joined by Zainul Mawji, President, Consumer Solutions; Navin Arora, President, Business Solutions; Jim Senko, our Chief Product Officer; Tony Geheran, our Chief Operating Officer; Jeff Puritt, President and CEO of TELUS International; John Raines, President of TELUS Agriculture and Consumer Goods; and Michael Dingle, Chief Operating Officer at TELUS Health.

Briefly, this discussion and answers to questions contain forward-looking statements. Actual results could vary materially from those statements, the assumptions in which they are based and the material risks that could cause them to defer are outlined in our public filings with Securities commissions in Canada and the U.S. including in our 2022 annual MD&A.

With that, over to you, Darren.

Darren Entwistle

Thanks, Diego and hello everyone. Throughout 2022, TELUS achieved strong operational and financial results across our business, leading our North American peer group with respect to 2022 operating revenue, adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow growth, along with most operating metrics. This is a trend that TELUS team has consistently demonstrated over the longer term. Our robust performance in the fourth quarter and for the full year reflects the chemistry of our globally leading broadband networks and customers first culture, driving our hallmark combination of profitable customer growth alongside strong financial results.

Industry leading telecom net additions of 301,000 represented our best fourth quarter on record and concluded another year of industry leading expansion of our customer base. Indeed in 2022, we delivered all-time record customer growth, surpassing total annual net additions of more than 1 million for the first time. This included another best every year for fixed subscriber growth of 274,000 and the highest mobile phone net additions for our organization since 2010 with 401,000 net new customers.

Our industry leading growth reflects the consistent potency of our operational execution unmatched by those product offerings across mobile and home and team member culture focused on delivering exceptional customer experiences over our globally leading PureFibre and 5G networks. Our team’s passion for delivering customer experience excellence, once again contributed to strong client loyalty across our key product lines, including blended mobile phone, PureFibre Internet, Optik TV, security, and voice churn, all below 1% for the year.