CAIRO/LONDON – Despite an uncertain future, Wind Mobile continues to add subscribers in good sized chunks, adding 38,875 net new customers in the quarter ended June 30th – according to the financial results of its parent company Global Telecom Holdings (part of the VimpelCom empire).
To put it into perspective that’s more net new subs than Vidéotron (one of Wind’s apparent suitors) and equal to the net new wireless postpaid subs which Rogers attracted in the second quarter.
As of the end of June, Wind Canada had 741,000 customers (20% more than the end of the second quarter of 2013) with average revenue per user climbing to $31.60, an 11.7% increase compared to the second quarter of last year. Continuing the above comparison, Videotron’s wireless Q2 ARPU was $41.51 and Rogers was $66.40.
Despite the good news on the subscriber front (and Wind CEO Tony Lacavera’s hunt for investors), Canaccord Genuity telecom analyst Dvai Ghose laid out the challenges still facing Wind in a note to investors this morning.
“While the progress at Wind seems encouraging, the future of the company is still uncertain. Wind’s financial sponsor, VimpelCom, has that that it wants to exit Canada because Industry Canada has not allowed it to assume control of Wind. The CRTC’s rules for the AWS-3 auction in March 2015 state that in order to qualify for the 30 MHz set aside for new entrants, a carrier must be an ‘operating new entrant’ in any particular market. As a result, if Videotron wants to bid for set aside spectrum in Ontario and the West, it has to acquire Wind and/or Mobilicity because it does not have existing new entrant wireless operations outside Quebec. However, while this may lead to Videotron acquiring Wind over time, especially as new entrant sales to incumbents are being blocked, Videotron has said that it can only decide whether to go national after new CRTC roaming rules are released. This is not expected until the Spring of 2015. Consequently, we may remain in a holding pattern for the next 6-9 months.”
(Ed note: Given how wireless is such a political hot potato in Canada now, we find it hard to believe the CRTC would wait until next spring to have a decision on the wholesale roaming issue [the five-day CRTC hearing is scheduled to start September 29th] and we assume the Regulator will have a decision on this before Christmas.
