Rogers reports Q2 results

Rogers Communications’ second-quarter consolidated revenues grew by 11% year-on-year to CAD2.8 billion (USD2.7 billion), up from CAD2.5 billion in the corresponding period last year. Net profit in the three months ended 30 June 2008 was CAD301 million, a turnaround on a previous second-quarter loss of CAD56 million, incurred partly due to costs related to stock options. Rogers’ wireless business brought in CAD1.5 billion in revenue in Q2, up from CAD1.4 billion a year earlier, whilst cable revenue grew to CAD718 million from CAD646 million over the same period. The company signed up 92,000 net new post-paid mobile customers in the most recent quarter, down from the 133,000 it added in 2Q07, whilst post-paid monthly ARPU increased 4% year-on-year to CAD75.5. It also added 41,000 cable telephony users, including 13,000 who migrated from its PSTN service, to take its total to 745,000 residential voice-over-cable customers at the end of June 2008, representing 32% of its basic cable TV subscribers, up from 22% a year earlier. At the same date it had 298,000 circuit-switched fixed subscriber lines. Cable broadband internet customers grew by a disappointing 13,000 in April-June, half its rate of take-up in the year-ago quarter, due in part to slow economic conditions, Rogers said in a statement. Its broadband user total reached 1.55 million at mid-2008. Rogers’ launch of Apple’s iPhone 3G mobile handset earlier this month is expected to boost revenues in the third quarter, although the high cost of the phone means that the operator is offering customers its biggest-ever handset subsidies.