Strong gains in long distance, DSL and service bundling led BellSouth to report consolidated Q3 revenue of $5.7 billion, up 5.4% from the same period last year. Earnings per share rose to $0.51, up 46% from the same period last year. Net income was $936 million compared to $640 million in the same quarter a year ago. The company also cited continued progress in service bundling, helping to blunt the effect of UNE-p line losses. Some operational highlights for Q3:
- added 654,000 net long distance customers, giving it a total of 3.4 million long distance customers, including approximately 24% of its residence and 34% of its mass-market small business accounts.
- data revenues of $1.1 billion, up 5.5% compared to the same quarter of 2002, driven by DSL
- added 111,000 net DSL customers, giving the company a total of 1.3 million
- total access lines declined to 23.9 million at the end of the quarter, down 4.0% compared to a year earlier, impacted by the economy, competition and technology substitution. Overall, BellSouth lost 393,000 access lines in the quarter.
- UNE-P lines increased by 188,000, the smallest increase since Q4 2001. The UNE-P line loss in Q2 was 249,000.
- the ratio of CAPEX to normalized revenue was 13.4%. Year-to-date this ratio is 12.7%.
- ended the quarter with $15 billion in overall debt and $10 billion in net debt.
Regarding the decision from the Georgia Public Service Commission, BellSouth executives said on a conference call that the issue may have to be addressed at the federal regulatory level. They did note that the Georgia ruling acknowledges that a standalone DSL service should be priced higher than a UNE-p line, so they do not expect an “economic penalty.”http://www.bellsouth.com
