CEO Guy Laurence said, “It was a busy and productive quarter. We delivered solid financial and operating metrics again this quarter whilst delivering a number of new and exciting services to our customers.” It is very true that the end of the third quarter has been very kind to Rogers Communications. They believe that much of their success is due to the Rogers 3.0 Plan implemented by CEO Laurence in 2014. They had a 4-percent growth in revenue across their wireless, cable and media divisions and an operating profit growth of 3-percent with a cash flow of $660 million.
Wireless revenue saw a growth of 3-percent and a net increase of 77,000 postpaid wireless subscribers – a figure that is four times greater than the prior year during the same period. Rogers also had 737,000 higher-value smartphone activations – up 20%, although their overall 88-percent of customers using smartphones remained unchanged. These figures included Mobilicity’s 154,000 prepaid customers in their total subscriber numbers, which now top 9.82 million – setting Rogers as the largest wireless telecom in Canada.
Rogers attributes its wireless growth to its positioning of its newly updated Share Everything Plans and another popular Roam Like Home option – 2.1 million subscribers have opted into the program. It is a great deal that allows customers that travel to the United States, Europe and the Americas to save hundreds of potential dollars in roaming fees, although roaming revenue was down 14-percent from last year during the same period. However, CEO Laurence downplayed that fact because the Roam Like Home deal has greatly contributed to brand loyalty.
Rogers reported that since January, their LTE network has grown over three times larger across Canada as a whole as they continue to roll out the prime “lower block” 700 MHz LTE spectrum. It is considered prime because it provides better in-building penetration and rural LTE coverage – their 700 MHz LTE spectrum now covers 71-percent of Canada’s population. Their overall LTE network now covers 92-percent of Canadians, which is an increase of 8-percent over Q4 2014.
Rogers has been very aggressive this year and has added new plans with more data and jumping on new devices and new manufacturers – such as the new BlackBerry Priv and adding more Huawei devices to it high-end (Nexus 6P) and low-end (Huawei Y6). All of these moves seem to be paying off.