Telus Corp. raised its quarterly dividend as it reported its first-quarter profit rose compared with a year ago.
The company says it will pay a quarterly dividend of 41.63 cents per share, up from 40.23 cents per share.
The increased payment came as Telus said it earned $321 million in net income attributable to common shares or 21 cents per diluted share for the quarter ended March 31.
The result compared with a profit of $127 million or nine cents per diluted share in the first quarter of 2024.
On an adjusted basis, Telus says it earned 26 cents per share in its latest quarter, the same as a year earlier.
Operating revenue and other income totalled $5.06 billion, up from $4.93 billion.
Telus said it added 218,000 net new customers, up around 9,000 compared with the same period a year earlier. The figure includes 20,000 mobile phone subscribers — down 25,000 year-over-year — and 21,000 internet customers, a decrease of 9,000 from a year earlier.
“This performance highlights the strength of our bundled product offerings across Mobile and Home, powered by our leading PureFibre and wireless broadband networks,” said Telus president and CEO Darren Entwistle in a press release.
“The dedication and passion of our team in delivering customer service excellence contributed to continued strong loyalty across our key product lines, once again this quarter.”
The company reported its mobile phone churn rate — a metric measuring subscribers who cancelled their services — was 1.06 per cent in the first quarter, down from 1.13 per cent in its previous first quarter. That included a postpaid mobile phone churn rate of 0.84 per cent.
The decrease reflected Telus’s “ongoing focus on customer retention,” the company said, along with successful promotions and bundled offerings.
Its mobile phone average revenue per user was $57.13 in the first quarter, a decrease of $2.18 or 3.7 per cent from a year ago.
Telus said the drop was due to customers signing up for base rate plans with lower prices “in response to more intense marketing and promotional price competition targeting both new and existing customers,” along with a decline in overage and roaming revenues.
The company said it is seeing more customers adopting unlimited data and Canada-U.S.-Mexico plans, which provide higher and more stable average revenue per user on a monthly basis while also reducing customers’ roaming and data overage fees.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 9, 2025.
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