Rogers reports Q3 net loss on joint venture charge, adjusted profit up from year ago

TORONTO —
Rogers Communications Inc. reported a net loss in its latest quarter as it was hit by a charge related to one of its joint venture investments.

The cable and wireless company says it lost $99 million or 20 cents per diluted share for the quarter ended Sept. 30 compared with a profit of $371 million or 71 cents per diluted share a year ago.

The results in the most recent quarter included a $422-million loss on an obligation to purchase at fair value the non-controlling interest in one of its joint ventures’ investments.

On an adjusted basis, Rogers says it earned $1.27 per diluted share in its most recent quarter, up from an adjusted profit of 84 cents per diluted share a year earlier.

Revenue in the company’s third quarter totalled $5.09 billion, up from $3.74 billion in the same quarter last year.

Rogers says its net increase in mobile phone subscribers totalled 261,000 for the three-month period, its best quarterly result ever, including 225,000 postpaid mobile phone net adds — up 61 per cent from the 164,000 recorded the same period last year.

The company credited the gains to “sales execution and customer satisfaction in a growing Canadian market.”

Rogers’ monthly churn for net postpaid mobile phone subscribers was 1.08 per cent, up from 0.97 per cent during its previous third quarter.

Rogers’ mobile phone average monthly revenue per user was $58.83, marking a 3.5 per cent increase from the third quarter of the prior year. It attributed the year-over-year difference to credits doled out to customers last year in the wake of its July 2022 network outage.

Its net increase in internet subscribers amounted to 18,000 for the quarter, which was up 12,000 year-over-year.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2023.