TELUS reports operational and financial results for fourth quarter 2023; announces 2024 financial targets

Industry-leading total Mobile and Fixed customer growth of 404,000, up 103,000 over last year, and our strongest fourth quarter on record, driven by continued robust demand for our unmatched portfolio of bundled products and services, and powered by a team member culture focused on delivering exceptional customer experiences over our globally leading networks

Strong Mobile Phone net additions of 126,000, our best fourth quarter since 2011, surpassing ten million mobile phone subscriber milestone; All-time quarterly record for Connected Device net additions of 203,000

Robust Fixed customer net additions of 75,000, including 36,000 internet customer additions, powered by our leading product portfolio in combination with TELUS’ expansive PureFibre network

Record high Mobility and Fixed customer additions of 1,266,000 for the full year, surpassing previous record high achieved in 2022 by 223,000, and the second straight year of net additions above the one million milestone

Strong quarterly financial results including Operating Revenues and Adjusted EBITDA growth of 2.6 per cent and 9.4 per cent, respectively, Net income higher by 17 per cent

Delivered full year Consolidated Operating Revenues growth of 9.4 per cent, surpassing $20 billion milestone, and Adjusted EBITDA growth of 7.6 per cent, respectively; Free Cash Flow of approximately $1.8 billion, up 38 per cent for 2023 and exceeding our updated annual target; Net income lower by 50 per cent in 2023 due to higher efficiency-related restructuring costs, depreciation and amortization from acquisitions, and financing costs

Targeting 2024 TTech Operating Revenues and Adjusted EBITDA to increase by 2 to 4 per cent and 5.5 to 7.5 per cent, respectively; Consolidated Operating Revenues and Adjusted EBITDA expected to grow at similar rates approximate to our TTech outlook; Stable Consolidated Capital Expenditures of approximately $2.6 billion; And strong Consolidated Free Cash Flow growth of circa 30 per cent to approximately $2.3 billion in 2024, supporting balance sheet strength and continued deleveraging along with our industry-leading dividend growth program

VANCOUVER, BC, Feb. 9, 2024 /PRNewswire/ – TELUS Corporation (TSX:T) (NYSE:TU) today released its unaudited results for the fourth quarter of 2023. Consolidated operating revenues and other income increased by 2.8 per cent over the same period a year ago to $5.2 billion. This growth was driven by higher service revenues in our two reportable segments: TELUS technology solutions (TTech) and Digitally-led customer experiences – TELUS International (DLCX). TTech service revenue growth was driven by: (i) higher mobile network revenues attributable to subscriber and moderating roaming revenue growth; (ii) an increase in fixed data service revenues, resulting from subscriber growth and higher, albeit moderating, revenue per internet customer; and (iii) growth in health services revenues. These factors were partly offset by lower TV and fixed legacy voice services revenues, primarily due to technological substitution, as well as macroeconomic and competitive pressures impacting consumer purchasing decisions across various products. Higher DLCX operating revenues resulted from expanded services for certain existing clients and growth from new clients, including new clients from our acquisition of WillowTree on January 3, 2023, and favourable foreign exchange impacts, which collectively more than offset the impact of some DLCX clients managing their own costs thus reducing our revenue. See Fourth Quarter 2023 Operating Highlights within this news release for a discussion on TTech and DLCX results.

“Throughout 2023, our team successfully navigated a highly competitive industry, overcame a challenging macroeconomic landscape and a dynamic regulatory environment, to achieve strong financial and operational results across our business. Indeed, our results for the year demonstrate execution strength in our TTech business segment, characterized by the potent combination of leading customer growth, complemented by strong operational and financial results, and enhanced by our significant and ongoing focus on cost efficiency. These results were buttressed by improving and resilient fourth quarter profitability from our DLCX segment, despite the continued challenging macroeconomic operating environment faced by TELUS International,” said Darren Entwistle, President and CEO. “Robust performance in our core telecom business is underpinned by our globally leading broadband networks and superior customers-first culture. This enabled our strongest fourth quarter customer growth on record, with total net additions of 404,000, up 34 per cent, year-over-year, driven by strong demand for our leading portfolio of bundled services across Mobility and Fixed services. The fourth quarter capped off a record setting year for customer net additions of 1,266,000, surpassing our previous record high in 2022 by more than 21 per cent, and marked the second consecutive year our team delivered more than one million new customer additions. These strong results included robust Fixed subscriber growth of 259,000; our highest Mobile Phone net additions since 2010 with 443,000 net new customers; and all-time record connected device net additions of 564,000. TELUS’ industry-leading growth reflects the consistent potency of our operational execution, and our unmatched bundled product offerings across Mobile and Home. Our team’s passion for delivering customer service excellence contributed to continued strong loyalty across our key product lines, once again this quarter. Notably, postpaid mobile phone churn of 0.87 per cent for the full year marks the tenth consecutive year at less than one per cent.”

“Today, TI reported its fourth quarter and full-year 2023 results that featured solid revenue growth, notwithstanding a continued challenging operating environment. Importantly, TI delivered on its commitment to improve profitability in the second half of the year, exiting the year with a strong margin profile more aligned with its historical trends,” continued Darren. “Our synergistic relationship offered meaningful support for TI’s business, alongside momentum fuelled by the AI solutions that TI provides to companies like Google, its second largest client, offsetting an otherwise softer demand environment. The improvement in TI’s profitability also reflected meaningful cost efficiency efforts implemented during the year, realigning its cost base to better meet the near-term demand environment. Over the long-term, TI remains an exciting growth story, with meaningful opportunities driven by digital transformation, underpinned by robust AI capabilities.”

“At our TELUS Health business unit, we achieved fourth quarter revenues of $432 million, alongside 24 per cent EBITDA contribution growth, delivering total annual revenues of $1.7 billion along with 11 per cent EBITDA contribution growth. We continue to execute on our global growth strategy and demonstrate our progress towards our goal to be the most trusted wellbeing company in the world. This includes our healthcare services and programs now covering nearly 70 million lives around the world, an increase of 1.8 million year-over-year; supporting health outcomes on 610 million digital health transactions during 2023, up five per cent over last year; and increasing our virtual care membership to 5.6 million, up more than 24 per cent over the prior year. Since acquiring LifeWorks in 2022, our team has committed to driving $427 million in annualized synergies by the end of 2025. This includes $327 million expected to be realized through operating cost synergies from continued integration, and optimizing our organizational structure, systems and real estate. Furthermore, we anticipate $100 million from longer-term revenue synergies driven by cross-selling health services products within our TELUS Health customer base, and throughout our TELUS portfolio of assets, including TELUS International. To date, we have achieved $233 million in combined annualized synergies, towards our overall objective. These synergies will allow us to re-invest in the growth of our business and improve our profitability, while we focus on delivering efficient, secure and best-in-class health and wellness solutions to our customers.”

“Our all-time record customer growth is underpinned by our dedicated team who are passionate about delivering superior service offerings and digital capabilities, over our world-leading wireless and PureFibre broadband networks,” added Darren. “Importantly, TELUS’ networks continued to earn global accolades in 2023 for reliability, expansiveness, speed and superiority, including multi-year recognition from independent, third-party organizations, such as Opensignal and PCMag. TELUS has been recognized as Canada’s most awarded network by Opensignal over six consecutive years, while PCMag named TELUS Canada’s best mobile carrier, and Best mobile carrier for business, in their annual Readers’ Choice Awards. With respect to fixed, PCMag recognized TELUS as the Fastest Internet Service Provider (ISP) in Canada for the fourth consecutive year in 2023. These accolades illustrate the TELUS team’s steadfast commitment to connecting Canadians to the people and information that matter most.”

Darren further commented, “The generational broadband network investments that TELUS has made over the last decade will continue to drive extensive socio-economic benefits for Canadians in communities from coast-to-coast, while underpinning the continued advancement of our financial and operational performance. These investments power our team’s ability to consistently drive profitable growth over the long-term, on the back of our differentiated asset base, best-in-class customer experience, and world-leading networks, alongside our unique growth businesses. This provides us with confidence in the robust outlook for our business and delivering on the annual targets for 2024 that we have announced today. These include TTech Operating Revenues and Adjusted EBITDA increases of 2 to 4 per cent and 5.5 to 7.5 per cent, respectively; Consolidated Capital Expenditures of approximately $2.6 billion; alongside Consolidated Free Cash Flow of approximately $2.3 billion, up circa 30 per cent over 2023, bolstered by strong EBITDA growth and stable capital investments. Our outlook for 2024 will be supported by the 2024 targets announced this morning by TI, with revenue and EBITDA growth of 3 to 5 per cent and 7 to 10 per cent, respectively, and industry leading free cash flow yield in line with TI’s historical average. Combining our outlook for TTech and TI, Consolidated Operating Revenues and Adjusted EBITDA are expected to grow at similar rates approximate to our TTech outlook. Furthermore, the unparalleled skill, innovation, grit and execution excellence of our team, on our consistent and winning strategy, underpins our leading multi-year dividend growth program, now in its fourteenth year, through to the end of 2025.”

“To further buttress the sustainability of our consistently strong performance, against the backdrop of the rapid transformation in our industry due to the evolving regulatory, competitive and macroeconomic environment that we currently face, we continue to focus on executing the extensive efficiency and effectiveness initiative across TELUS, initially announced in August. Importantly, the transformational investments we have prudently made over the course of more than a decade in building the best culture, and enabling industry-leading customer experiences over our globally leading wireless and PureFibre broadband networks, allowed us to accelerate our well-progressed plans to digitally revolutionize our business and further streamline our operating costs. Our team’s grit, resilience and ability to embrace change and continuously evolve the way we operate have enabled us to achieve our targeted team member reductions in 2023, with the full run-rate of annualized cost savings expected to be realized in the second quarter of 2024. Furthermore, our focus on cost efficiency is continuing into 2024, targeting incremental restructuring investments of approximately $300 million. While these come with many difficult decisions, we continue to leverage our decades-long track record of successfully navigating exogenous factors, in order to rise to the current challenges and future proof our business.”

“Against the backdrop of these ongoing challenges, our TELUS family continues to bring our caring culture to life,” said Darren. “Last year alone, our team members and retirees logged an unprecedented 1.5 million hours of volunteerism in communities across the globe — an unparalleled accomplishment that is more than any other company in the world. Importantly, this represents the fifth consecutive year that we have collectively contributed over one million hours. This brings us to a total of $1.6 billion gifted in cash, in-kind contributions, time and support programs, and 16 million hours, which equates to 2.2 million days of volunteering since 2000. Due, in part, to our team’s unsurpassed dedication to putting our communities and customers first, the TELUS brand has increased in value from $10.3 billion in 2023 to circa $11.5 billion today as ranked in the Brand Finance 2024 global report. Notably, TELUS moved up two places to become the most valuable telco brand in Canada and the eighth most valuable brand, nationally.”

Doug French, Executive Vice-president and CFO said, “In the fourth quarter of 2023, our team achieved strong operational and financial results, supported by our consistent focus on profitable customer growth and our ongoing focus on cost efficiency. For the year, operating revenue growth of 9.4 per cent was effectively aligned with the lower end of our updated guidance, while Adjusted EBITDA landed within the targeted range. Cash flow from operations decreased by 6.5 per cent and free cash flow increased by 38 per cent to approximately $1.8 billion, surpassing our updated target of approximately $1.5 billion. The higher free cash flow result for the year reflects the timing of restructuring payments of approximately $200 million related to our efficiency program in 2023 that will flow into 2024 along with a lower-than-expected cash impact from device financing.”

Doug added, “In the fourth quarter, we purposefully accelerated capital expenditures, focusing additional investments in digitization and platform development, particularly within key growth areas of our business, along with additional investments to expand the reach of our PureFibre network within targeted communities. These additional investments will further enhance our go-to-market opportunities as we begin the new year. Our team also continued to execute against our significant cost efficiency program focused on driving sustainable EBITDA expansion, margin enhancements and cash flow generation. As we head into 2024, cost efficiency will remain a key priority as we identify further opportunities across our organization.”

“Our continued strong operational and financial performance supports our robust balance sheet and liquidity position” added Doug. “Our debt maturity schedule is a testament to our prudent financial planning. With the average maturity of our long-term debt of over 11 years, and 87 per cent of our debt being fixed, we are well-positioned to successfully navigate a dynamic operating environment with resilience and foresight. Furthermore, the average cost of our long-term debt of 4.33 per cent at the end of 2023 remains low relative to current rates. Our balance sheet in 2024 will be further enhanced by the meaningful increase in free cash flow alongside strong EBITDA growth, and supported by our stable core capital expenditure outlook of approximately $2.6 billion, excluding investments related to real estate development initiatives. As a percentage of revenue, our consolidated capital intensity in 2024 will remain low and in the 13 per cent range. This strong position further supports our industry-leading dividend growth program now in place through 2025, along with deleveraging our balance sheet while continuing to make strategic investments to continue advancing our winning and sustainable growth strategy.”

“For 2024, we have established ambitious financial targets, building off our leading growth profile and operating execution excellence. Our financial outlook reflects continued healthy growth within our core TTech business as we maintain our consistent focus on profitable customer growth driven by continued demand for our superior bundled offerings over our leading broadband networks. Furthermore, in 2024, we anticipate improving financial contributions from TELUS International, as well as from TELUS Health and TELUS Agriculture & Consumer Goods,” Doug concluded.

As compared to the same period a year ago, net income in the quarter of $310 million was up 17 per cent and Basic earnings per share (EPS) of $0.20 increased by 18 per cent. These increases were driven by the impacts from: (i) consolidated EBITDA growth, as discussed below; and (ii) the estimated unrealized appreciation recorded from our virtual power purchase agreements with renewable energy projects as of December 31, 2023. These were partially offset by: (i) higher depreciation and amortization reflecting increases related to growth in capital assets in support of the expansion of our broadband footprint, including our generational investment to connect homes and businesses to TELUS PureFibre and 5G technology coverage; and growth in internet, TV and security subscriber loading; (ii) higher interest costs primarily from greater long-term debt outstanding, attributable in part to business acquisitions, in addition to an increase in the effective interest rate; and (iii) higher employee benefits expense to reflect higher restructuring costs related to accelerated cost efficiency programs. As it relates to EPS, the trends also reflect the effect of a higher number of Common shares outstanding. When excluding the effects of restructuring and other costs, income tax-related adjustments, real estate rationalization-related restructuring impairments, virtual power purchase agreements unrealized change in forward element, other equity losses related to real estate joint ventures, and other adjustments (see ‘Reconciliation of adjusted Net income’ in this news release), adjusted net income of $341 million increased by 0.6 per cent over the same period last year, while adjusted basic EPS of $0.24 was unchanged over the same period last year. Adjusted net income is a non-GAAP financial measure and adjusted basic EPS is a non-GAAP ratio. For further explanation of these measures, see ‘Non-GAAP and other specified financial measures’ in this news release.

Compared to the same period last year, consolidated EBITDA increased by 6.7 per cent to approximately $1.7 billion and Adjusted EBITDA increased by 9.4 per cent to more than $1.8 billion. The growth in Adjusted EBITDA reflects: (i) broad-based cost reduction efforts across both the TTech and DLCX segments, including workforce reductions, synergies achieved between LifeWorks and our legacy Health business, and increased TTech outsourcing to DLCX, as well as savings in marketing, discretionary, and administrative costs; (ii) higher mobile network, residential internet and security revenues largely driven by subscriber growth; (iii) higher mobile equipment margins; and (iv) organic health services growth. These factors were partly offset by: (i) merit-based compensation increases; (ii) higher bad debt expense; (iii) declining TV and fixed legacy voice margins; (iv) higher costs related to the scaling of our digital capabilities, inclusive of increased subscription-based software licences, contractor and cloud usage costs; and (v) lower agriculture and consumer goods margins.

In the fourth quarter, we added 404,000 net customer additions, up 103,000 over the same period last year, and inclusive of 126,000 mobile phones and 203,000 connected devices, in addition to 36,000 internet, 23,000 TV and 23,000 security customer connections. This was partly offset by residential voice losses of 7,000. Our total TTech subscriber base of more than 19.3 million is up 7.6 per cent over the last twelve months, reflecting a 4.1 per cent increase in our mobile phones subscriber base to 10.1 million, and a 26 per cent increase in our connected devices subscriber base to more than 3.1 million. Additionally, our internet connections grew by 8.8 per cent over the last twelve months, surpassing 2.6 million customer connections, our TV subscriber base increased by 5.2 per cent to approximately 1.4 million customers, and our security customer base expanded by 8.0 per cent to over 1 million customers.

In health services, as of the end of the fourth quarter of 2023, virtual care members were 5.6 million and healthcare lives covered were 69.5 million, up 24 per cent and 2.7 per cent over the past twelve months, respectively. Digital health transactions in the fourth quarter of 2023 were 157.9 million, up 3.7 per cent over the fourth quarter of 2022.

Cash provided by operating activities increased by $188 million in the fourth quarter of 2023 and free cash flow of $590 million increased by $267 million compared to the same period a year ago reflecting lower capital expenditures and lower income taxes paid, partly offset by an increase in cash interest paid. The increase in free cash flow was driven by: (i) higher EBITDA; (ii) lower restructuring and other costs, net of disbursements, due to a greater number of real estate rationalization initiatives where payments of executory costs will be disbursed over multiple years, in addition to the timing of disbursements for personnel-related costs expected to impact the following year; (iii) lower income taxes paid, net of refunds; and (iv) a decline in capital expenditures.

Consolidated capital expenditures of $533 million, including $47 million for real estate development,

decreased by 19 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2023. TTech operations drove $141 million of the decrease primarily due to the planned slowdown of our fibre and wireless network build and systems development, which is consistent with 2023 build targets when compared to the accelerated investments in 2022. TTech real estate development capital expenditures of $47 million increased by $11 million in the fourth quarter of 2023 due to increased capital investment to support construction of multi-year development projects including TELUS Ocean and other commercial buildings in B.C. By December 31, 2023, our 5G network covered more than 31.6 million Canadians, representing approximately 86 per cent of the population.

Consolidated Financial Highlights

Fourth Quarter 2023 Operating Highlights

TELUS technology solutions (TTech)

TTech operating revenues (arising from contracts with customers) increased by $113 million or 2.6 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2023, primarily reflecting increases in mobile network revenue, mobile equipment and other service revenues, fixed data services revenues, and health services revenues, as described below. Decreases in fixed voice services revenues, fixed equipment and other service revenues and agriculture and consumer goods services revenues were partial offsets.
TTech EBITDA increased by $43 million or 2.9 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2023, while TTech Adjusted EBITDA increased by $119 million or 8.0 per cent, reflecting: (i) broad-based cost reduction efforts across both the TTech and DLCX segments, including workforce reductions, synergies achieved between LifeWorks and our legacy Health business, and increased TTech outsourcing to DLCX, as well as savings in marketing, discretionary, and administrative costs; (ii) higher mobile network, residential internet and security revenues largely driven by subscriber growth; (iii) higher mobile equipment margins; and (iv) organic health services growth. These factors were partly offset by: (i) merit-based compensation increases; (ii) higher bad debt expense; (iii) declining TV and fixed legacy voice margins; (iv) higher costs related to the scaling of our digital capabilities, inclusive of increased subscription-based software licences, contractor and cloud usage costs; and (v) lower agriculture and consumer goods margins.

Mobile products and services

Mobile network revenue increased by $64 million or 3.8 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2023, largely due to growth in our mobile phone and connected device subscriber base, as well as moderating roaming revenue growth. These impacts were partly offset by the impact of lower base rate plan prices and lower overage revenues, discussed below in mobile phone ARPU.
Mobile equipment and other service revenues increased by $9 million or 1.3 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2023, primarily attributable to higher-value smartphones in the sales mix. This was partly offset by a reduction in contracted volumes attributed to increased promotional activity centred around rate plans and market aggression, in addition to more customers taking advantage of bring-your-own-device (BYOD) plan offerings.
TTech mobile products and services direct contribution increased by $74 million or 4.9 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2023, largely reflecting mobile subscriber growth, higher equipment margins and higher roaming margins associated with increased international travel volumes. These were partly offset by the impact of lower base rate plan prices and lower overage revenues as discussed below in mobile phone ARPU.
Mobile phone ARPU was $58.50 in the fourth quarter of 2023, reflecting a year over year decrease of $0.19 or 0.3 per cent for the fourth quarter. This decrease is attributed to lower overage revenues as customers continue to adopt larger or unlimited data and voice allotments in their rate plans, in addition to lower base rate plan prices from increased promotional activity and market aggression affecting both new and existing customers, which first escalated in the second quarter of 2023 and continued through the heightened seasonal promotional periods. These impacts are partly mitigated by our continued focus to drive higher-value loading and realize higher, albeit moderating, roaming revenues from increased travel.
Mobile phone gross additions were 545,000 in the fourth quarter of 2023, an increase of 83,000 or 18 per cent, driven by continued market-driven promotional activity, which first escalated in the second quarter of 2023 and continued through the remainder of the year during the heightened seasonal promotional periods; in addition to increased retail and digital traffic, our 5G subscription value proposition on Public Mobile and growth in the Canadian population.
Mobile phone net additions were 126,000 in the fourth quarter of 2023, an increase of 14,000 or 13 per cent, driven by higher mobile phone gross additions, partially offset by higher mobile phone churn, as described below.
Our mobile phone churn rate was 1.40 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2023, compared to 1.22 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2022, largely due to higher customer switching activity from heightened seasonal promotional activity, as discussed above. These factors have been partly mitigated by our continued focus on customer retention through our industry-leading service and network quality, successful promotions and bundled offerings.
Connected device net additions were 203,000 in the fourth quarter of 2023, an increase of 97,000, attributable to increased IoT connections from customers in the transportation, healthcare and home security industries.

Fixed products and services

Fixed data services revenues increased by $40 million in the fourth quarter of 2023, driven by an increase in our internet, security and TV subscribers and higher, albeit moderating, revenue per customer as a result of internet speed upgrades and rate changes. This growth was partially offset by lower TV revenue per customer, reflecting an increased mix of customers selecting smaller TV combination packages and technological substitution.
Fixed voice services revenues decreased by $6 million in the fourth quarter of 2023, reflecting the ongoing decline in legacy voice revenues as a result of technological substitution and price plan changes. Declines were partly mitigated by the success of our bundled product offerings, our retention efforts and the migration from legacy to IP services offerings.
Fixed equipment and other service revenues decreased by $13 million in the fourth quarter of 2023, largely reflecting a reduction in residential and business development project work, both as a result of the non-recurrence of large projects in the fourth quarter of 2022 and rising interest rates that softened the property development market in 2023.
TTech fixed products and services direct contribution increased by $11 million or 0.8 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2023, reflecting increased internet and security margins, driven by subscriber growth and higher, albeit moderating, revenue per customer as a result of internet speed upgrades and rate changes, in addition to organic health services growth. These were fully offset by technological substitution driving declines in TV and legacy voice margins, as well as lower agriculture and consumer goods margins as a result of transient headwinds and macroeconomic challenges.
Internet net additions were 36,000 in the fourth quarter of 2023, a decrease of 6,000, due to a higher churn rate from macroeconomic and competitive pressures impacting consumer purchasing decisions, partly offset by our success in driving strong gross additions in the consumer market through diverse products and services.
TV net additions were 23,000 in the fourth quarter of 2023, an increase of 6,000, due to our diverse products and services, partly offset by higher churn related to the same factors as internet.
Security net additions were 23,000 in the fourth quarter of 2023, a decrease of 5,000, due to higher churn related to the same factors as internet, partly offset by increased demand for our bundled product offerings and diverse products and services.
Residential voice net losses were 7,000 in the fourth quarter of 2023, an increased loss of 3,000. Our bundled product and lower-priced offerings have been successful at mitigating losses and minimizing substitution to mobile and internet-based services.

Health services

Through TELUS Health, we are leveraging technology to deliver connected solutions and services, improving access to care and revolutionizing the flow of information while facilitating collaboration, efficiency, and productivity across the healthcare ecosystem, progressing our vision of transforming healthcare and empowering people to live healthier lives.
Health services revenues increased by $21 million …

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