DENVER—Qwest Communications International Inc. said its focus on service bundles is paying off, with the plans helping to raise the company’s average revenue per user and driving growth in the telecom company’s wireless segment. Qwest’s overall operating revenue was essentially flat at $3.47 million—but the company managed to cut costs in order to raise its net income by more than 54 percent.
Qwest, which offers wireless service using a mobile virtual network operator model on Sprint Nextel Corp.’s CDMA network, reported 10-percent growth in its wireless revenue compared with the first quarter of 2005, and increased its customer base by 14,000 subscribers. Qwest ended the quarter with 784,000 wireless subscribers.
The company said that about 75 percent of its wireless customers receive an integrated bill with at least one other service. Overall, Qwest said that its bundles of voice packages plus three products are up more than 100 percent compared with the year-ago quarter, and that value-added services have driven up the company’s wireline ARPU to $49 from $46 in the same period of last year.
Wireless data features helped raised Qwest’s wireless ARPU 9 percent, from $46 in 2005’s first quarter to $50 in the first quarter of 2006.
“The company continues to focus on adding wireless data subscribers and approximately 50 percent of new customers sign up for a data service,” Qwest noted.
Qwest’s stock was down about 2 percent in mid-day trading.
