TORONTO – “2007 was a year of continued solid growth in customers, revenues and cash flow while at the same time we further de-leveraged our balance sheet, simplified our corporate structure and laid the groundwork for returning increasing amounts of cash to our shareholders," said Ted Rogers, president and CEO of Rogers Communications, in the press release announcing his company’s fourth quarter 2007 results.
"While we have much to do in continuing to reinforce our services and systems, I am confident that we are exceptionally well positioned to carry on our growth and success in 2008 and beyond."
Consolidated revenue grew 13% to $2.7 billion in the quarter while, adjusted operating profit increased 25% to $957 million, and net income by 44% to $254 million;
On the wireless side, subscriber postpaid net additions were 158,000 (slower than the growth rate of Q4 2006, when the company added 189,000 new customers) while postpaid subscriber monthly churn fell to 1.17% versus 1.24% in the fourth quarter of 2006. Wireless postpaid monthly ARPU (average revenue per user) increased 6% year-over-year to $73.33 driven in part by the 48% growth in data revenue to $192 million, or 14.1% of network revenue.
Cable ended the quarter with 656,000 residential voice-over-cable telephony subscriber lines. Net additions of voice-over-cable telephony lines were 65,000 for the quarter, of which approximately 2,000 were migrations from the circuit-switched platform.
Cable’s Internet subscriber base grew by 46,000 in the quarter to 1,465,000, while basic cable subscribers increased by 20,000 to 2,295,000 and digital cable households increased by 61,000 to reach 1,353,000.
More to come.
