Rogers ramps up revenues

Canadian communications group Rogers today announced its consolidated financial and operating results for the three months ended 31 March 2007. Consolidated first quarter operating profit increased 34.3% year-on-year to CAD798 million (USD720 million) on revenues that grew 15.8% to CAD2.3 billion, whilst net income was CAD170 million, up from CAD13 million in the year-ago period. Rogers’ cable division ended the quarter with more than 440,000 residential voice-over-cable telephony subscriber lines, with net additions of 74,600 lines in the period (of which approximately 18,400 migrated from Rogers’ own circuit-switched PSTN lines). The total number of cable and circuit-switched local telephony subscribers at Rogers Home Phone and Rogers Business Solutions reached 982,100 by the end of March. Households taking Rogers’ digital cable TV services increased by 69,600 in the quarter to reach a total of 1,203,600, while residential high-speed internet subscribers grew by 42,100 in the quarter to 1,338,700. Strong subscriber growth continued at mobile unit Rogers Wireless, with quarterly net post-paid additions of 94,500, compared to 89,600 in the first quarter of 2006. Total GSM subscribers reached 6.864 million at the end of March, with just under 20% subscribing to pre-paid services. Wireless post-paid monthly churn was 1.17% versus 1.47% in the first quarter of 2006, while post-paid monthly ARPU increased 8.7% year-on-year to CAD67.64. The ARPU increase reflects a 45.9% lift in data revenues, which represented 12.3% of total wireless network revenue in the quarter. Revenues at Wireless grew by 22.5% year-on-year to CAD1.23 billion, and the unit’s operating profit rose by 42.7% to CAD578 million.