Cogeco Cable Inc. president and CEO Louis AudetJ.P. Moczulski
Cogeco Cable Inc. showed moderate growth in its fiscal second quarter but fell short of analyst estimates in terms of both revenue and profit.
The Montreal-based cable company, which has operations in Ontario, Quebec and Portugal, said Friday that its revenue was up five per cent to $336.6-million, while its net income rose 4.6 per cent to $31.2-million or 64 cents per share.
Analysts had estimated Cogeco Cable's profit would be 68 cents per share and revenue would be $339-million, according to figures compiled by Thomson Reuters.
Cogeco Cable added 57,079 revenue generating units, a measure of customer subscriptions to its various services, bringing the total by the end of February to 3.3 million RGUs.
"This positive growth cascaded in Cogeco Cable's other key consolidated financial indicators, in particular with revenue and operating income before amortization," said Louis Audet, who is president and CEO of both Cogeco Cable and its parent Cogeco Inc.
"We are on target to deliver Cogeco Cable's revised projections as issued in January of this year by providing to our customers a superior offering, through various improvements and best-in-class customer service."
Cogeco Inc.'s profit rose 1.3 per cent in its fiscal second quarter as the company wrapped up the acquisition of the Corus radio stations in Quebec. Net income amounted to $10.6-million or 63 cents per diluted share.
Revenue, including Cogeco Inc.'s share of the cable subsidiary's revenue, grew 6.6 per cent to $350.6-million in the three months ended Feb. 28, up from $329.1-million in the second quarter of fiscal 2010.
"With the completion of the acquisition Corus Entertainment Inc.'s Quebec radio stations on Feb. 1, 2011, Cogeco Diffusion, Cogeco's radio subsidiary, became one of Quebec's largest radio broadcasters. The integration of the newly acquired radio stations is going according to plan," Audet said.
Cogeco Inc. also missed the one estimate compiled by Thomson Reuters, which called for $349.4-million in revenue and 75 cents per share of profit.