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April 9 (Reuters) - Cogeco Cable Inc, a Canadian cable TV, Internet and phone services provider, raised its full-year profit outlook, citing expansion into data services and its U.S. cable business.
The Montreal-based company, which also reported an 18 percent rise in second-quarter profit, raised its 2014 profit forecast to C$235 million from C$230 million.
Cogeco also raised its quarterly dividend to 30 Canadian cents from 26 Canadian cents a year earlier.
Cogeco Cable had expanded its data services business through its acquisition of PEER 1, a Vancouver-based Internet hosting services provider.
Peer 1, which Cogeco Cable acquired on April 3 last year, contributed 10 percent of the C$486 million revenue, which had risen 13 percent from last year.
Data centers house large-capacity server computers and data-storage systems that are connected to the Internet via high-bandwidth links.
Cogeco Cable also got access to the U.S. cable T.V. market when it acquired Atlantic Broadband on Nov. 30, 2012.
Cogeco Cable has been trying to increase its presence in the fast-growing data-center business to counter customer defections in its cable TV and telephone services.
The cable company lost 13,248 cable customers, while 5,946 telephone customers canceled their services in the quarter.
Net profit rose to C$60.4 million ($55 million), or C$1.23 per share, in the quarter ended Feb. 28, from C$51 million, or C$1.04 per share, a year earlier.
Analysts on average had expected a profit of C$1.10 per share on revenue of C$477.2 million, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
The company, owned by media and telecommunications company Cogeco Inc, competes with Rogers Communications Inc , Telus Corp and BCE Inc.
Cogeco Cable's shares closed down 12 Canadian cents at C$58.00 on the Toronto Stock Exchange on Wednesday.
($1 = 1.10 Canadian dollars) (Reporting By Shubhankar Chakravorty in Bangalore; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Eric Walsh)