Rogers Posts 84% in 3rd Quarter Profits on iPhone Sales

Canada's Rogers Communications has reported an 84% jump in 3rd quarter profits on strong sales of Apple's iPhone handset and net subscriber growth. The company posted a net income of  CA$495 million (US$386 million) compared to CA$269 million (US$210 million) a year ago. Revenues climbed by 14% to CA$3 billion (US$2.34 billion) as the company sold around 255,000 of the 3G iPhone handset.

Approximately one-third of the iPhone sales were to subscribers new to Rogers with the other two-thirds being to existing Rogers Wireless subscribers who upgraded to the iPhone and committed to new term contracts.

Wireless subscriber net additions totalled 239,000, with postpaid net additions of 191,000. Postpaid monthly ARPU (average revenue per user) increased 4% year-over-year to CA$78.46 (US$61.20) driven in part by the 38% growth in data revenue to CA$253 million, representing 16.5% of network revenue.

Rogers also successfully closed US$1.75 billion investment grade debt offerings on August 6, 2008, consisting of US$1.4 billion of 6.8% Senior Notes due 2018, and US$350 million 7.5% Senior Notes due 2038. Proceeds of the offerings were used in part to fund the $1.0 billion purchase of 20 MHz of national spectrum in the recently concluded AWS auction.

Ted Rogers, President and CEO of Rogers Communications commented: "The results for the quarter also clearly reflect the substantial and very successful investment Rogers has made to bring Apple's iPhone 3G to more than a quarter million Canadians over a very short period of time. While the upfront cost associated with adding this many iPhone subscribers so rapidly is high, it is an investment that we expect will provide considerable returns in the form of higher revenue per customer and lower churn in subsequent periods."

Posted to the site on 28th October 2008