For the first quarter of 2005, BellSouth’s consolidated reported revenue from continuing operations totaled $5.09 billion, an increase of 2.3 percent compared to the same quarter in 2004. First quarter 2005 earnings per share (EPS) from continuing operations were 37 cents compared to 63 cents in first quarter 2004. First quarter 2004 results included 16 cents from the gain on the sale of operations in Denmark. Some highlights of the quarterly report:
- BellSouth reported 253,000 DSL net customer additions and 455,000 long distance net customer additions for Q1. This brings its DSL customer count to 2.3 million and LD customer count to 6.5 million (more than 50% penetration of its mass-market base). Cingular Wireless added more than 1.4 million customers in the first quarter of 2005, bringing its nationwide customer base to 50.4 million customers. Cingular’s gross customer additions in the first quarter totaled 4.8 million. Churn improved sequentially to 2.2 percent in the first quarter of 2005.
- Normalized results from continuing operations include BellSouth’s 40 percent proportionate share of Cingular’s revenues and expenses.
Normalized revenue was $8.31 billion for the first quarter of 2005 compared to $6.57 billion for the first quarter in 2004. Normalized net income was $718 million compared to $888 million for the first quarter in 2004. - In the first quarter of 2005, Communications Group revenue was $4.62 billion, an increase of 1.2 percent compared to the same quarter of 2004. First quarter operating margin was 24.2 percent compared to 25.0 percent for the full year of 2004 and up 260 basis points over the previous quarter.
- Driven by DSL, network data revenue for the first quarter was $1.16 billion, an increase of 6.3 percent compared to the same quarter of 2004.
- More than 113,000 customers added DIRECTV to their communications service package bringing the total number of customers with this package to 314,000.
- As of March 31, 2005, total access lines were 21.2 million, down 3.9 percent compared to a year earlier and down 137,000 compared to year-end 2004. During first quarter, retail access lines declined by 61,000, which included positive business line growth of 6,000. UNE-P access lines resold by BellSouth competitors were down 95,000 compared to year-end 2004.
- Cingular’s service ARPU in the first quarter was $49.59, a decline of 3.3 percent from the prior year (pro forma) and a slight sequential decline of 38 cents (pro forma). ARPU from data services continued its strong growth in the first quarter, increasing to $3.70, up $0.81 from the previous quarter.
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