TORONTO – Rogers Communications today announced today it added more than 95,000 wireless customers in Q1, as well as record low wireless churn and solid wireline broadband additions.
“We delivered another strong quarter with really solid financial and operating results led by our largest segment, wireless," said Joe Natale, president and CEO, in the company’s Q1 press release. "Our team delivered on all key wireless metrics, growing subscribers, revenue, and adjusted EBITDA, while continuing to reduce customer churn.
“In cable, we grew revenue and margins driven by our competitive advantage in Internet. At the same time, we continue to make great progress on our key long-term plan to improve the customer experience and drive margin improvements and sustainable growth."
Total revenue increased 8% this quarter, compared to the same quarter last year, to $3.63 billion (new international accounting standards are part of the equation this year and boosted this number – revenue would have grown 6% under the old standards), largely driven by wireless service revenue growth. Wireless equipment revenue grew 27% (or 8% under the prior accounting basis) “as we activated more devices, driven by having our highest level of first quarter gross additions of 377,000 and lowest churn of 1.08% in 15 years,” reads the release.
Compared to the 7% growth under the prior accounting basis, Wireless service revenue grew 5% under the new accounting “as the device subsidy recovery component of our revenue is largely removed from our service revenue. This is offset by higher equipment revenue growth (27% vs. 8%) as more equipment revenue is recognized upon activation at its relative fair value of the total consideration expected to be received over the contract term,” the release continues.
Cable revenue increased 1% in Q1, as compared to Q1 2017, to $969 million as Internet revenue growth of 7% (and 26,000 new subscribers) continued to drive that. The company says its ability to offer Ignite Gigabit Internet over the entire cable footprint (passing 3.4 million homes) continues to be its best differentiator. “This was coupled with the continuing growing demand for speed, with 56% of our residential Internet base now on speeds of 100 Mbps or higher, up from 48% in the prior year,” adds the release.
Rogers lost 12,000 cable TV customers in the quarter, an improvement over Q1 2017 when it lost 24,000 subscribers. It also added 9,000 wired home phone customers.
Ignite TV, the company’s new TV service which will launch later this year, driven by Comcast’s X1 platform, is now available to its full employee base of 15,000 who live in its cable footprint in Ontario. So far, 1,400 employees have Ignite TV in their homes and are testing it for the company.
In a conference call with financial analysts, Natale noted this is a premium service with premium installation and support levels and that he is encouraging employees to test the product rigorously. He encouraged the analysts not to think of this as simply a replacement of the current cable TV system in customers’ homes but step one of providing “the smart home of the future where video entertainment is a piece of it.”
On the Rogers Media side, sports continues to drive growth, and revenue there increased 12% this quarter (compared to Q1 2017) to $532 million. This was driven by a higher distribution to the Toronto Blue Jays from Major League Baseball (thanks to the league’s sale of 75% of BAMTech to Disney for US$2.5 billion in 2017).
For the full release, please click here.
