WIND Mobile has slowly been growing its subscriber base this past year and nobody seems to be noticing, except their parent company, VimpelCom, and its shareholders. Just at the end of 2013, WIND had 676,209 subscribers, but by the end of the Q1 in 2014 their “customer base exceeds the 700,000 of active subscriber mark.” It was at that time they decided to add more “value” into their monthly plans. WIND has reported another strong three month period – their best quarter ever – adding another 38,875 subscribers that brings their total up to 741,000. What investors look for is the Average Revenue Per User (ARPU), and that also increased to $31.60 per month – an increase of $0.60 the previous quarter. Earlier this year, Pietro Cordova, Chief Operating Officer, WIND Mobile, stated:
“We are a relatively young challenger in wireless but we’ve already accomplished so much. Hitting 700,000 subscribers reiterates that Canadians are looking for competition in the wireless industry and consumers trust us to bring them the very best value… Our 700,000 subscribers prove that Canadians stay with WIND Mobile because they want to, not because they have to.” In April, WIND Mobile then added a new $39 Spring Deal into their mix of plans, allowing the subscriber up to $150 WINDtab towards a new device, unlimited Canada-wide Calling, Texting, Picture/Video Messaging, Unlimited Data, and Unlimited U.S. Roaming (Data, Talk and Text). This is a great bargain, especially for someone that travels to the U.S. to visit family or for business. Then in May, WIND went after Mobilicity and Public Mobile customers by offering them a FREE month of service if they port over from either of those two carriers. They were also giving you a free SIM card, and you could either keep you existing phone and get $500 in service credits or upgrade your phone and get up to $500 on WINDtab and get service credits when you turned in your old phone. Mobilicity is in deep financial trouble so the timing was just right to grab some of those nervous subscribers.
WIND Mobile has also been working hard to increase and upgrade their network for better coverage and faster speeds. Across all of Canada, all of WIND’s 1408 cell towers have been upgraded to HSPA+ and they have already started phase two, which involves updating the towers for Dual Carrier HSPA+. This would theoretically double their speed from 21Mbps to 42Mbps. So far, they have installed 360 of these new antennas across various locations as they continue to increase their coverage area. Industry Minister James Moore recently announced a special AWS-3 spectrum auction taking place in April or May of 2015. The terms and conditions are definitely in favor of the smaller companies, such as WIND, and it just so happens that WIND and Quebec-based Videotron are the only new carriers that can financially afford to buy that spectrum. It looks like WIND Mobile may be able to continue its growth spurt into 2015. Hit us up on our Google+ Page and let us know if you are on WIND Mobile and how are they working for you…as always, we would love to hear from you.