Telus posts end-year gains, talks up IPTV campaign

Canadian mobile, fixed and broadband network operator Telus Communications has posted a 4.4% year-on-year rise in fourth-quarter revenues to CAD2.55 billion (USD2.58 billion), whilst EBITDA in the three months to 31 December 2010 grew 7.4% to CAD847 million and net income jumped 45.5% to CAD227 million. Total customer connections across all business areas stood at 12.25 million at end-2010, up 3.2% from 11.88 million a year earlier. Meanwhile, less than a year since the soft launch of the Vancouver-based telco’s fibre-to-the-node (FTTN)-based IPTV service ‘Optik TV’, Telus claims it has gained around 10% of potential British Columbian and Albertan pay-TV subscribers. It reported 312,000 customers to its TV packages at end-2010, coverage for which it augments with a satellite-based offering. Telus’ chief commercial officer Joe Natale said in an interview: ‘We did have a previous TV product but this one is far superior … in Western Canada, there are roughly 3.2 million homes – and we’ve got 10% market share in a short period of time.’ TeleGeography’s GloblaComms Database notes that in June 2010 Telus commercially launched its fibre-based multi-service packages under the Optik banner for users in British Columbia and Alberta within its FTTN footprint, at which date it had over 150,000 existing pay-TV subscribers.