TORONTO – Thanks to integration expenses (of Microcell and Call-Net), Rogers Communications posted a loss of $66.7 million in the fourth quarter of 2005, ended December 31st..
While that’s a far larger quarterly loss than in Q4 2004, the wireless, cable, telecom, and media giant’s annual loss was 33.5% lower than last year at $44.6 million.
Revenue in the quarter was $2.12 billion, a 35.4% increase over the same period last year and operating profit was $513 million, a 14% jump. Revenue for the full year was $7.48 billion, a 33.4% increase while OP was $2.14 billion, a 23.6% boost.
That OP line includes the integration expenses of $32.9 million in the quarter and $66.5 million on the year as RCI worked to bring recent acquisitions Call-Net (Sprint Canada) and Microcell (Fido) into the fold.
Company CEO and founder Ted Rogers told analysts during this morning’s quarterly conference call that the Microcell integration is basically finished now.
All four operating companies contributed to the year-over-year growth, including 35% growth at Rogers Wireless, 8% at Rogers Cable, 12.8% at Rogers Media, and the inclusion of $211.2 million at Rogers Telecom Holdings (formerly Call-Net, which was purchased on July 1, 2005)
Wireless ended the quarter with a total of 6,168,000 retail wireless voice and data subscribers, reflecting postpaid net additions in the quarter of 202,600 and prepaid net additions of 13,700. Monthly postpaid churn decreased year-over-year to 1.57%.
Excluding integration expenses, quarterly operating profit on a pro forma basis would have increased by 19.1% on a consolidated basis and 41.5% at Wireless. On a pro forma basis, quarterly operating revenue increased by 14.7% on a consolidated basis and by 23.6% at Wireless, while quarterly operating profit increased by 13.0% on a consolidated basis and by 32.8% at Wireless.
At Rogers Cable, adjusting for the change in subscriber deactivation practices, during the quarter, the division experienced an increase of 62,200 Internet subscribers, 73,200 digital cable households, 8,000 basic cable subscribers and 29,800 cable telephony subscribers. Cable continued to expand the availability of its Home Phone voice-over-cable telephony service and closed the quarter with 47,900 subscribers.
As for the numbers, Rogers had a total of 4.818 million wireless subscribers at the end of 2005, after adding over 634,000 during the year. "We are first and foremost a wireless company," said the founder.
Rogers Cable ended the year with 2.263 million cable customers and 913,000 digital households (1.14 million set tops), an increase of 35.2% during 2005. Internet customers are at 1.145 million, an increase of 22.3% as compared to the end of 2004.
CEO Rogers addressed the spasm of publicity this week thanks to a story in the National Post which said RCI had made an offer to buy Shaw Communications. As both companies have said, the story is not true and anyway, he added, he’s too busy.
"The plate is full," said Rogers. "We’re not about to do anything irresponsible to disturb (the company’s) growth path… I don’t know where these things in the paper come from and in my vision, it’s irresponsible reporting.
