More Bell stores coming to a corner near you: Cope

Facing financial analysts for the first time in about two years, Bell Canada chief executive George Cope outlined the company's plan to perform better on the wireless front. The company plans to leverage its brands, expand its retail presence and push harder on data devices and services. Cope said Bell Mobility has been moving in the right direction for the past few years with improved gross activations, lower costs of acquisition and a stable churn rate. The challenge for the future, he said, was in winning market share. "We've got a number of the metrics moving the right way, we need more market share than we are achieving right now and that's what we're working on," he told a group of about 250 analysts during a two-hour meeting. To increase market share, the company is going to push gross adds higher by significantly adding to the number of retail locations where it sells its wireless products and services. The problem, according to the CEO, is that the company hasn't done a good enough job being in the public eye. "We need to grow the number of locations that sell Bell Mobility product. From 2002 to 2006 when other carriers were growing distribution, Rogers and Telus added over 300 distribution points in those five years, Bell added 19," he said. "That's what happened to the market share ." During this period, Bell Mobility consistently found itself at the lower end of overall gross additions. Cope acknowledged, more than two years ago, that the company needed to do better on that front. Today, he noted Bell has closed the gap somewhat, but conceded there is still work to be done on the distribution front. Two years ago, he committed to 100 new retail locations and now the company is forging ahead with plans to roll out 60 more kiosks for Solo - Bell Mobility's discount brand. "We have a lot of expertise on our team that's joined us the last few years who knows that business well. We've increased our points of presence. We've closed the gap somewhat over the last two years, not completely," he told analysts in his opening remarks. Bell plans to place significant attention on growing its discount Solo brand as well as on its joint venture mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) Virgin Mobile Canada. On the Solo front, Cope was succinct in describing the strategy for its low-cost option. "Every price point set in the market by our competitors at the low end Solo will match," he stated. And he's pretty bullish on the prospects for Solo and Virgin Mobile to succeed in the market. "There are seven brands in Canada now. One silver lining, is good luck to the eighth in terms of trying to enter the marketplace on what's happening. So I think the capital markets and the development of the discount segment in Canada by the carriers themselves may have an interesting implication to what happens going forward," he said. For its full-service core Bell Mobility brand, he said the company is going to push hard on the data front. New smartphones as well as increased data service revenue has helped the company close the gap with its competitors. Cope revealed that data revenue increased 54% year over year and it now represents 15% of overall average revenue per user.

More Bell stores coming to a corner near you: Cope

News | February 13, 2009

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