Staffieri applauds CRTC move to “level the playing field” in Ontario and Quebec; reports quarterly loss

Rogers Communications Inc. CEO Tony Staffieri said, during the company’s third quarter conference call on Thursday, that he supports the CRTC’s decision to “level the playing field,” after it announced earlier this week it will be mandating wholesale access to incumbents’ FTTP networks in Ontario and Quebec. “We've been required to wholesale, under the regulatory regime, high speed internet for quite some time, and so it's good to see a level playing field,” he said, adding that the interim rates set by the regulator are “not that different than the wholesale rates that we've had for our network over the last little while.” “We continue to improve our performance in that regulatory regime and figuring out the right value proposition to perform, … stabilize, and start to improve our market share performance.” The decision will only affect BCE Inc. and Telus Corp. The CRTC decided that mandating cable carriers to provide temporary aggregated FTTP access would have limited additional benefit and could slow down the regulatory process. As a result, the commission determined that only ILECs would be mandated to provide temporary aggregated FTTP access. Rogers’ third quarter included its best quarterly results ever in terms of wireless subscriber growth, but the company also reported a net loss in profits. While revenues increased, Rogers’ profit continued to fall during the three months ending Sept. 30 compared to last year, reporting a net loss of $99 million, a 127 per cent decline from last year’s $371 million. The company blames the loss on the costs of acquiring and merging with Shaw Communications, as well as a $422 million obligation to purchase interest in one of its joint ventures' investments. “Overall, it was a record quarter,” said Staffieri, indicated by the company’s 261,000 total net additions for mobile phone subscribers, up 40,000 year-over-year. CFO Glenn Brandt said it is the strongest loading ever seen by a Canadian wireless company. The additions include 225,000 postpaid mobile phones, compared to 164,000 year-over-year, which is the highest quarterly increase Rogers has on record. Rogers posted $5.09 billion in revenue, a 36 per cent increase compared to last year’s 3.74 billion. A large part of this increase can be attributed to the company’s cable revenue, which shot up to $1.99 billion from $975 million, a 105 per cent increase year-over-year. This cable increase stems from bringing Shaw's operations into the fold, which Rogers’ report says contributed about $1 billion in revenue this quarter. “We have essentially doubled the size of cable with the Shaw acquisition,” said Brandt. The company also pointed to the $59 million in customer credits it provided last year due to the July 2022 network outage as a contributing factor to its large increase in service revenue this quarter. Prepaid mobile phone subscribers did not fare as well as postpaid this quarter, which dropped to 36,000 net additions compared to last year’s 57,000. Overall, the company has 10.33 million postpaid and 1.28 million prepaid wireless subscribers in total. Total wireless revenue was posted at $2.58 billion, a 14 per cent increase from last year’s $2.27 billion. Monthly average revenue per user (ARPU) from wireless subscribers rose by $2.01 year-over-year, reaching $58.83. Cable subscribers in the retail internet and video realms increased, while home phone subscribers continued to decline. Rogers saw 18,000 net additions in retail internet subscribers compared to last year’s 6,000, now totalling 4.3 million subscribers. Video saw 23,000 net additions compared to last year’s 7,000 net additions, totalling 2.756 million. While home phone subscribers declined by 36,000 compared to last year’s 18,000 net loss, totalling 1.65 million. – Reporting by Phalen Tynes-MacDonald at pcreed@thewirereport.ca and editing by Jenna Cocullo at jcocullo@thewirereport.ca

Staffieri applauds CRTC move to “level the playing field” in Ontario and Quebec; reports quarterly loss

News | November 9, 2023

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Staffieri applauds CRTC move to “level the playing field” in Ontario and Quebec; reports quarterly loss

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