Rogers stock up on positive results

Canadian telecom company Rogers Communications Inc. boosted its wireless ARPU more than 6 percent year-over-year and posted its lowest churn rate ever: 1.24 percent.
Rogers added 189,300 net new postpaid subscribers, plus 55,200 prepaid users. The carrier’s churn rate was down from 1.57 percent in the fourth quarter of 2005. Meanwhile, postpaid ARPU increased to $59.40, an increase of 6.1 percent; Rogers credited an increase in data ARPU of nearly 42 percent for the boost in overall ARPU. Prepaid ARPU was up about 14 percent to $13.03, and prepaid churn also was down year-over-year from 3.68 percent to 3.14 percent. Rogers closed out the year with about 5.4 million postpaid and 1.4 million prepaid customers.
The company’s net income for the quarter stood at $151 million, up substantially from a loss of $57.6 million during the same period in 2005. Operating revenue from Rogers’ wireless segment increased 20 percent year-over-year to about $1.08 billion; the company noted that during the quarter, it updated some accrued liabilities which resulted in an operating profit of about $19 million; additionally, the company incurred additional wireless costs of $16 million during the final quarter of 2005 which were not repeated during 2006.
Rogers’ stock was up more than 5 percent in trading on the news.