“In the Third Quarter we have continued to build momentum through our investment-led Project Marlin and we are continuing to deliver top line growth” Phil Bentley, Chief Executive of CW Communications, commented in a release of the group’s third quarter results today.
“Investments in our mobile networks have improved coverage and reliability and we saw mobile data grow a further 23 percent with traffic carried on our networks increasing by over 35 percent. Fibre investments have focussed on our Caribbean markets and are key to generating growth in the Broadband & TV segments. We continue to work with Governments and Regulators to gain the required approvals for completion of the Columbus acquisition and are on track to close before our fiscal year end” Bentley stated.
The groups CEO went on to say “Mobile revenue (53 percent of Group revenue) was up 4 percent in the Third Quarter driven by growth in LIME and Panama, up 10 percent and 4 percent respectively. LIME growth was driven by continued subscriber additions in Jamaica, 18 percent where investment in our 4G mobile network led to constant currency revenue growth of 27 percent and an NPS gain of 11 points, whilst in Barbados our “Upgrade Barbados” marketing campaign led to 6 percent revenue growth and our market-leading LTE service in Cayman drove revenue growth of 3 percent. Panama mobile growth followed a strong increase in subscribers, primarily within prepaid, as a result of increased promotions leading up to and through the holiday season.”
C&WJ revenues up 27% in Q3
72% Customer Satisfaction for CWJ
Cable & Wireless Jamaica (CWJ) trading as Lime, ranked highest in customer satisfaction among all of Jamaica’s utility providers, according to a survey by the Office of Utilities Regulation, OUR CWJ said in a release recently.
According to the report the Regulator said 72% of respondents reported that they were satisfied doing business with Cable & Wireless.
Among its telecommunications rivals Digicel, Flow and other utility providers, customers gave the company, the highest marks for product quality and accurate billing and placed them on top for customer care that makes them feel valued and respected.
“We have consistently put customers at the center of our strategic commercial decision-making and these objective survey results are the just reward for those efforts.” Garfield Sinclair Cable & Wireless CEO stated in response to this latest round positive public perception.
Cable & Wireless also received coveted recognition for being the only Telecommunications provider to register a double-digit increase in service quality over the 12-month review period.
Huge mobile growth for C&WJ
Buy Rated Alert! Cable & Wireless Jamaica now elevated to Buy Buy rated from Market Watch based on the strong increase to subscriber base and mobile revenue growth.
Cable & Wireless Communications Plc is reporting that Cable & Wireless Jamaica continued its momentum in growing its mobile subscriber base, increasing by 23% in the December quarter last year over the last quarter of 2012. In a release to investors the UK listed aren’t company said, “Subscriber growth momentum in our Jamaica business was sustained and quarterly mobile service revenue rose 42% on the prior year in local currency”.
Cable & Wireless Jamaica stock traded on Wednesday, February 5th as high as 32 cents to record a gain of 100 percent for the year to date. However, the price, closed at 31 cents, a gain of 94 percent for the year-to-date and a new 3 year high.
IC Insider understands that between May and November, 250,000 new cellular customers were added to the network and new customers continue to be added at the same pace. In addition, the Christmas promotion went well with some phones sold out ahead of December and most of the phones sold involved data plans. Going forward, it will translate to billions of dollars in increased revenue per annum for the company.
At the close of trading on Monday, there were 5,147,967 shares on offer by Mayberry Investments at 32 cents to sell. The broker switched from selling and instead bought 5,000,000 units at 32 cents at the start of trading on Tuesday.
Related posts | Cable & Wireless up 56% in January
CWC to launch 4G LTE in Cayman
Cable & Wireless (C&W) will launch Long Term Evolution (LTE) mobile data services in the Cayman Islands, where it trades as LIME. C&W will launch LTE services in the 2013/14 financial year initially on the isle of Grand Cayman.
The upgrade is the latest part of a programme of network upgrades across C&W’s pan-America business, providing customers with better access to mobile data. Mobile data usage is the fastest growing service across Cable & Wireless Communications’ (CWC) businesses, with Group mobile data revenue increasing by 34% in the 2012/13 year, a release from CWC said.
LTE is a ‘fourth generation’ (4G) mobile service which will enable C&W to provide mobile data services at speeds about four times faster than currently available in the Cayman Islands. This will enable customers to access services on their smartphones such as video calling, streaming of HD video clips and ultra-fast web browsing.
CWC was awarded the mobile spectrum over which it will broadcast LTE services having won a competitive tender process. It was awarded two blocks of spectrum in the 700 megahertz (Mhz) spectrum band, which will help to ensure that customers receive a good signal even when indoors.
“Just over two years after launching 4G mobile services across all three of the Cayman Islands, C&W has acquired an LTE license and additional frequencies which will enable us to provide super-fast mobile data services on the next generation of technology” the release from C&W said.
What is 4G? | Mobile phones have been through several generations of development.
The introduction of basic data services (predominantly text messaging) was called second generation (2G). EDGE networks provide faster connectivity to enable easier usage of mobile internet. EDGE networks are often marketed as 2.5G.
The 3G standard was given to networks utilising High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) technology, which enabled even faster download speeds and the use of multimedia services such as video calling and streamed video clips. 3G networks also enabled operators to launch mobile broadband services.
The International Telecoms Union has designated that a further generational leap has taken place in mobile technology. The 4G standard is awarded to a range of network technologies including HSPA+, WiMax and LTE.
D&G or C&WJ: to buy or not?
Hi John: Should I buy more Lime stock or D&G? I already own some Lime shares. What was the last dividend paid by D&G? Thanks for your advice.
Response | That is a tough question. By the way there is no such company as Lime. Unfortunately the stock exchange has, in their wisdom, bastardized the system by trying to suggest that Cable & Wireless has had a name change but that is not so. There is no legal limited liability company such as Lime listed on the exchange. Lime is purely a brand name and not the real company name. It seems to me that the exchange is totally confused. They have the name Lime for the company with the ordinary shares but they did not change the name of the preference shares which are still listed as Cable & Wireless. Drawing a line from what they have done, anyone not knowing the true situation would assume that there are two separate telecom companies listed, one called Lime and one called Cable & Wireless. Why JSE persists with this aberration is yet to be determined as there is no rationale for it, but then the stock exchange is doing many strange things these days. It makes one wonder if they are really serious about running a stock exchange at all.
D&G | Now to the question you asked. My investment company owns shares in both Cable & Wireless and D&G. First, the last dividend paid by D&G was 20 cents in December last year and another should be paid in June or July this year. They normally pay out 80% of profits each year so the next dividend could be around 40 cents since we project about 80-85 cents earnings per share for the current year to June.
D&G’s quarterly results are expected next week and they should have enough momentum to surprise the market and push the stock price up. I really like it as they have cut a lot of costs out of the operation with the switch of production of Red Stripe to the USA. The local market seems to be holding up well based on the last set of results released. We see further demand in the next fiscal year that should continue to move the stock price higher.
C&WJ | We still like and have great hopes for Cable & Wireless. If fact, we love turnaround companies because if we get it right and time the entry into the stock, we will make above average returns. They have been cutting costs and revenues should start rising from the new pricing strategy adopted for cell calls last year. These moves allowed them to pull in more than 250,000 new users. The revenue from those phones should be earned for the full 12 months this fiscal year instead of only part year as was the case for the 2013 fiscal. The calculations we’ve made indicate strong profits this year from increased revenues and reduced costs, the latter based on cost cutting as well as improved margins resulting from re-pricing when the interconnection rate were lowered last year.
Our main concern in the short term is the redundancy charge that we estimate to be around $3 billion that could cause the market to react negatively when the final 2013 numbers are released in a few weeks’ time. That doesn’t really bother us, as that reaction in our estimation, will be short-lived as investors start to see major improvement in the operating results starting in the June quarter. One may want to hedge one’s bet, by buying more now but leave room to pick up some at lower prices should the market react negatively to the impact of the redundancy cost that will depress the results but won’t repeat in the new year. Not only will it not repeat, there should be cost savings from the move that will help boost profits. Either way, it’s a bit of a gamble but the price is so low now and the upside potential so great in our estimation, that there is less risk in buying now than to await the results.
