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CenturyTel 1st-qtr Profit Falls

The Associated Press

MONROE, La. (AP) — CenturyTel Inc. said Thursday that its first-quarter profit fell 24 percent as it gained high-speed Internet customers but shed many more access line customers. The results did beat analysts' estimates, however.

For the quarter that ended March 31, the telecommunications company earned $67.2 million, or 67 cents per share. This compares with $88.8 million, or 82 cents per share, in the year-ago quarter.

When excluding certain items, the company earned 82 cents per share — 2 cents higher than analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had expected. Analysts typically exclude special items.

Revenue dipped 2 percent to $636.4 million from $648.6 million last year; analysts were looking for $634.2 million.

CenturyTel said voice revenue fell 5 percent to $209.9 million, while network access revenue dropped almost 7 percent to $192.8 million. Data revenue rose 10 percent to $139.9 million.

The company said it gained more than 24,000 high-speed Internet customers during the quarter, for a total of more than 665,000 at the end of March. This is an increase of more than 13 percent when compared with the year-ago quarter.

But the company also lost 141,000 access line customers, ending the quarter with 1.97 million. This is a drop of almost 7 percent year over year.

CenturyTel said that is making good progress toward finishing its purchase of Embark Corp., and thinks it will be completed during the current quarter. In January, shareholders of both companies approved the deal and CenturyTel has gotten approval from 10 of the 15 states it needs to approve the deal.

Looking forward, CenturyTel predicted second-quarter earnings of 77 cents to 81 cents per share on revenue of $628 million to $638 million.

Company shares rose 31 cents to $27.26.