Toronto-based national carrier Rogers added 23,000 new wireless postpaid subscribers in its first quarter of 2019, totalling to 9,180,000 wireless subscribers.
In its Q1 2019 earnings report that was released on April 18th, Rogers said it also had its best churn rate of 0.99 percent, which dropped by 0.09 points from the same reporting period a year earlier. Churn represents the rate at which subscribers left Rogers for one of the company’s competitors.
“We achieved the best wireless postpaid churn in our company’s history,” Rogers’ CEO Joe Natale said in the earnings.
“We believe the lower postpaid churn this quarter was a result of our strategic focus on enhancing the customer experience by improving our customer service and continually increasing the quality of our network,” Rogers said in the report.
In terms of prepaid subscribers, the company said it had 56,000 net losses and 171,000 gross additions, totalling to 1,570,000 prepaid subscribers. This dropped by 148,000 prepaid subscribers from the 1,718,000 total prepaid subscribers that was reported in the same period a year ago.
Rogers now in total has 10,750,000 total postpaid and prepaid subscribers.
The company reported a slight loss in wireless revenue this quarter totalling $2.18 billion, compared to $2.19 billion that was reported in the same period a year earlier.
As a result, the company’s total revenue for all services fell to $3.58 billion, a one percent change from the $3.63 billion that was reported in the same period a year earlier.
Rogers said the drop was largely “driven by 12 percent decreases in both wireless equipment revenue and media revenue.”
“Declining wireless revenue was primarily a result of our disciplined approach to postpaid subscriber loading this quarter,” the earnings said.
The company’s Q1 2019 blended average billing per user was $64.62, a $1.95 increase from the $62.67 that was reported in the same period a year earlier.
The three percent increase “was a result of the increased service revenue.”
Rogers saw a four percent service revenue increase in wireless due to a “larger postpaid subscriber base” and an increase in the average revenue per user because of an increased “mix of subscribers on higher-rate plans from various other brands.”
Source: Rogers
