WIND Mobile had 403,000 subscribers at the end of 2011

WIND Mobile’s Q3 2011 numbers showed that the carriers subscriber numbers reached 358,000. So how many subs did WIND end up with in 2011? Well, today partner Orascom Telecom announced their Q4 and year-end results and WIND Mobile Canada has their stats included in the mix.

According to the report it shows WIND Mobile, as of December 31st, 2011, with 403,000 subscribers. This represents an increase of 45,000 subscribers in 3 months, and a 1-year increase of 170,359 subscribers. WIND also ended 2011 with 211 WIND Mobile-branded locations and a total of 453 points of sale (would have been more in Blockbuster didn’t shut down). Plus, their coverage area now reaches over 12.7 million people (representing 37% of Canada’s total population and 47% of the licensed population) with more than 1,060 sites.

There’s another notable takeaway from the report, it reads that “Although WIND had positive prepaid net additions in Q4 2011, WIND elected not to follow unreasonably aggressive pricing waves adopted by low end market entrants proven to have no financial feasibility and in fact unsustainable in the mid-term for the high dormancy and churn rates coupled by significantly lower ARPU and negative lifetime value of such customers. WIND’s commitment to the pre-paidmarket in Canada continued, but reflected a conscious and disciplined mandate not to match competition purely on lower price”. Interesting.

Even though “WIND elected not to follow unreasonably aggressive pricing”, there’s some good info on ARPU (Average Revenue Per User). WIND did a big Q4 holiday push where they offered all in talk, text and data plans and the report shows that WIND’s ARPU continued to fall. In December of 2010 it was at $29/month, then September decreased to $27.10, the hitting a low $26.40/month (representing a 9% decrease in 1-year).

In February CEO Tony Lacavera stated that WIND continued bringing in subscribers and reached the 425,000 subscriber milestone.

Source: Orascom (PDF)