Qwest Communications reported Q1 2005 revenue of $3.45 billion, representing the fourth consecutive quarter of stable revenues for the company. Net income per share was $0.03, which includes a gain on asset sales of $0.14 in the first quarter of 2005, compared with a loss of $0.17 a year ago.
“Our ability to stabilize revenues, as well as our continued diligence on cost containment and optimization, has resulted in meaningful margin expansion. EBITDA margins increased to more than 28 percent compared with 25 percent a year ago,” said Oren G. Shaffer, Qwest vice chairman and CFO. Some highlights for the period:
- Qwest added 85,000 DSL lines in Q1 2005, bringing its total DSL customer based to 1.1 million lines. Qwest added 81,000 DSL lines in Q4 2004.
- The company’s bundle penetration, defined as consumer retail lines with at least one additional service, including wireless, DSL or long-distance, increased to 47 percent compared to 35 percent a year ago.
CAPEX totaled $313 million, compared to $455 million in the first quarter of 2004. - Qwest added 82,000 long distance customers in the first quarter, bringing its total to 4.6 million long-distance lines.
- Wireless revenues were flat sequentially while wireless subscribers declined 11,000 in the first quarter to 743,000, an improvement from the decline of 24,000 last quarter. Nearly all of the decline occurred in the first half of the quarter before the migration to the usage-based network was complete. Qwest successfully completed the migration in mid-February resulting in reduced churn in the quarter.
- Business retail access lines declined 36,000 in the first quarter, including 23,000 of UUNet disconnects, a significant improvement from year ago declines of 87,000. The company attributes the improvement in the rate of loss primarily to success in small-business lines.
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