Telus sees boost to internet customers as it builds fibre service in Ontario, Quebec

Telus Corp. saw an increase in internet subscriptions as the company builds its fibre presence in markets like Ontario and Quebec, provinces long dominated by its rivals.

During the quarter, Telus said it signed up 40,000 net residential and business internet customers, up 6,000 from a year earlier.

Chief financial officer Doug French said that was a mark of success for the company. He also highlighted Telus’ 169,000 connected device net additions, an increase of 10,000 from the same-three month period a year ago.

Telus said those numbers were boosted by finding new customers in the transportation and connectivity industries.

“It primarily was our continued build of fibre and the effectiveness of our fibre build,” French said in an interview.

“It would be some momentum … especially around the small business market, and then our eastern expansion.”

Telus recently introduced home internet service to customers in Ontario and Quebec, a fibre internet market dominated by Bell Canada.

Telus began offering fibre internet service throughout Ontario and Quebec in November 2024 under the CRTC’s wholesale internet rules, which allow the Big 3 telecoms to access rivals’ infrastructure, in exchange for a fee, outside their own core regions. It has said it plans to extend its offerings to the Atlantic provinces too.

This past summer, Telus announced it would spend $2 billion to deliver broadband services across Ontario and Quebec over the next five years, attributing the move to the CRTC’s wholesale fibre framework.

The strategy also includes building fibre infrastructure in those regions, a process for which French said pre-planning has begun.

Meanwhile, Bell has announced its own plan to use the wholesale framework to deliver internet to some customers in Alberta and B.C.

French said that represents an “upside opportunity, not a downside” to Telus because of potential wholesale revenue it can bring in.

“As we’ve highlighted, we are obviously supportive of competition,” he told analysts on a conference call Friday.

“There’s a good chance these are customers that we would not have gotten, so it is a net benefit to us.”

Telus reported a third-quarter profit attributable to common shareholders of $493 million, up from $280 million a year ago. The company said the profit amounted to 32 cents per share for the quarter ended Sept. 30, up from 19 cents per share in the same quarter last year. The increase was mainly driven by a move to buy back some of its long-term debt earlier this year that resulted in a gain for the quarter.

Telus’ operating revenue and other income totalled $5.11 billion in the third quarter, up from $5.10 billion in the same quarter last year.

On an adjusted basis, the company said it earned 24 cents per share in its latest quarter, down from an adjusted profit of 28 cents per share a year ago.

The average analyst estimate had been for an adjusted profit of 26 cents per share, according to LSEG Data & Analytics.

Telus said it added 82,000 net mobile phone subscribers in the quarter, down 48,000 year-over-year.

Desjardins analyst Jerome Dubreuil said the results were below expectations, but noted some positives for the company, including its performance on net internet additions.

“The stock has underperformed its Big 3 peers over the past month,” Dubreuil said in a note.

“Telus underperformed Rogers Communications Inc. by 11 per cent and BCE Inc. by six per cent. We expect a negative share price reaction.”

The company reported its mobile phone churn rate — a measure of subscribers who cancelled their services — was 1.11 per cent in the third quarter, compared with 1.09 per cent a year ago. The result included a postpaid mobile phone churn rate of 0.91 per cent.

It said higher churn was due to “more intense competitive promotional pricing” in the market, which was partially offset by Telus’ focus on customer retention and network quality, along with success in bundled offerings.

Its mobile phone average revenue per user (ARPU) was $57.21 in the third quarter, a decrease of $1.64 from a year ago. Telus said the drop was attributable to customers signing up for base rate plans with lower prices, along with a decline in roaming revenues as more Canadians adopt unlimited data and Canada-U.S.-Mexico plans.

Telus president and CEO Darren Entwistle said one of the challenges when it comes to ARPU is that “we don’t entirely control our own destiny,” given competitive pressures in the telecom industry.

He said Telus hopes its product bundling offers can serve as an “antidote” to the problem.

“The extent to which we can increase our product intensity in our customer relationships through progressive bundling, that’s going to give us a holistic outcome with the client,” Entwistle said.

While French said Telus is optimistic it can generate momentum on ARPU growth in the coming quarters, that may have to wait until after the upcoming holiday shopping season.

“As we get into the fourth quarter and you see Black Friday and Christmas specials that will come in, any aggressive specials could obviously slow that down,” he said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2025.

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Sammy Hudes, The Canadian Press