Growth in almost all facets of the cable business and in its wireless business boosted Rogers Communications to increased revenue and profit in Q4.
Rogers’ cable unit added 10,700 basic cable subscribers in the quarter, up from an increase of approximately 8,000 in Q4 2005. Digital cable households increased by 69,600 in the quarter to reach a total of 1,134,000.
Residential high-speed Internet subscribers grew by 44,800 to a total of 1,291,000.
Rogers also added 95,100 cable VoIP subscriber lines to end the year with 365,900. The company said 13,100 of those 95,100 migrated from the company’s circuit-switched-based phone service. The company reported the combined number of circuit-switched and VoIP lines reached 920,500, including both residential and commercial customers.
Rogers said its cable subsidiary made significant investments during the quarter in unspecified network enhancements, customer premise equipment, and scalable infrastructure related to network capacity increases in order to accommodate future demand for cable, Internet and telephony products.
On the wireless side, Rogers during the quarter began its rollout of an HSDPA (High-Speed Downlink Packet Access) wireless voice/data network in the province of Ontario. The company reported postpaid additions of 189,300 customers and net prepaid additions of 55,200. Churn was down, and revenue and ARPU were both up, all because of data services.
Rogers’ subsidiaries, including cable and wireless, all reported increased revenue and profit. Corporate revenue was up on both a quarterly and yearly basis, swinging Rogers from losses in 2005 to profits in 2006 of $176 million for the quarter and $622 million for the year.
