Weak Canadian economy drives down Telus Q3 earnings

Telus' lower than expected third quarter earnings reflect the ongoing economic challenges that every service provider is facing. During the quarter, the Vancouver-based telco earnings totaled $261 million, while revenue was $2.25 billion. The telco's third quarter results fell below analyst expectations of 76 cents a share based on revenue of $2.27 billion for Q3 09.

Contributing to Telus' poor third-quarter financial performance was, not surprisingly, its wireline business. In the third quarter, Telus' wireline revenues were down by $43 million or 3.4 percent to $1.4 billion in comparison to Q3 08. During the quarter, Telus saw its local and long distance voice revenues decline.   

Similar to the tier one U.S. telcos, Telus saw its Network Access Lines (NALs) decrease by 44,000 in Q3 to 4.1 million, down 4.3 percent from 2008. Meanwhile, Telus' dedication to bundling services, including TELUS TV, helped to improve residential year-over-year NAL losses.    

These results have driven the telco to lower its 2009 total revenue guidance from $9.01 to $9.1 billion to $9.01 to $9.06 billion. While Telus did increase its wireless revenue guidance by $23.3 million, guidance for the telco's wireline revenue was lowered.  

For more:
- Wall Street Journal via Dow Jones has this article [1]

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