Telecom network operator Rogers Communications announced that its second quarter revenue reached CAD 3,455 million (+2 percent) or USD 2,636 million with a net income of CAD 394 million (CAD 363 million).
Rogers Communications generated revenue of CAD 1,931 million (+1 percent) from wireless, CAD 870 million (nil growth) from cable, CAD 97 million (+3 percent) from Business Solutions, CAD 615 million (+6 percent) from Media.
The increase in revenue is mainly attributed to the adoption of its Share Everything plans serving premium service offerings like Roam Like Home, Rogers NHL GameCentre LIVE, Spotify, shomi, and Texture.
“We continued to make meaningful improvements to the customer experience, delivering our third straight quarter of Wireless postpaid churn improvement. We continued the rollout of our Gigabit Internet service to almost half our cable footprint, and introduced two innovative leapfrog solutions to Canadian businesses. Overall, we’re making good headway on our Rogers 3.0 strategy,” said Guy Laurence, CEO of Rogers.
Investment
The Canadian telecom operator made investment in LTE network to enhance network coverage and the quality of network. The company has deployed 700 MHz LTE network to reach 89 percent of Canada’s population in June, 2016 against 78 percent in December, 2015.
The 700 MHz LTE network offers improved signal quality in basements, elevators, and buildings with thick concrete walls. Deployment of its overall LTE network has reached approximately 94 percent of Canada’s population in June, 2016 against 93 percent in December, 2015.
Rogers Communications made investment in cable network infrastructure to improve the reliability and quality of network to meet customer data demands, increase the capacity of Internet platform to deliver gigabit Internet speeds across Cable footprint by the end of the year. The company is also gearing up to launch IPTV later this year.
Rogers Communications lowered investment in information technology infrastructure and customer premise equipment-related expenditures.
It also invested in its digital platforms and broadcast facilities to enhance revenue from media business.
As a result of investment, Rogers added 65,000 wireless postpaid users, an improvement of 41,000 year on year.
Rogers achieved 5 basis points improvement in wireless postpaid churn.
Internet revenue grew 15 percent with net additions of 12,000, an improvement of 8,000 year on year.
The company’s 1 Gigabit Internet service is now available to nearly 2 million homes in Canada. Rogers said it aims to offer 1 Gigabit Internet service to its entire Cable footprint by the end of 2016, well ahead of competitors.
Rogers Communications has a total postpaid customer base of 8,350,000 with the Average Revenue Per Account (ARPA) at CAD 116.06.
The loss in prepaid business was overcome by the addition of 25,00 showing an upsurge of 17 percent in the quarter adding to net 1,612,000 customers, with net wireless customers becoming 9,962,000. The average revenue per wireless customer adds to $60.18 which is a bit under the figure from last financial report. The reason for the same has been related to the recent acquisition of Mobilicity, said Rogers Communications.
In spite of subscriber improvement, profit has not increased much due to a downfall of 27 percent in revenue from smartphone sales. The company gets phones from manufacturers like Samsung Electronics and Apple in U.S. dollars and resells the same in weaker Canadian dollars, resulting in the loss.
Rogers Communications announced recently that it is back to its previous form with the 3.0 plan working positively for it.
Rogers Communications aims to acquire a 10 million wireless subscriber milestone by the next quarter. The key strategies believed to be beneficial for the company are focus on customer service, cheaper international roaming plans and bundling internet and mobile phone service.
Vina Krishnan
[email protected]
