Rogers Communications Inc. earned 10 percent more revenue and its profits jumped by more than a third in the three months leading up to the end of June, a financial reporting period that ended just before a devastating outage destroyed the company’s telecommunications networks across the country. country.
The telecommunications giant released quarterly results before stock markets opened on Wednesday, and the numbers painted a picture of a company whose business is booming.
Wireless revenue rose 11 percent to just $1.8 billion “primarily as a result of higher roaming revenue associated with significantly increased travel,” the company said. Rogers added roughly 122,000 new wireless customers in the quarter, roughly double the number it added a year ago.
In addition, cable TV revenue increased 3 percent to just over $1.03 billion, “primarily due to changes in service pricing,” the company said.
The media division saw the biggest boost of all, with revenue up 21 percent to $659 million compared to the same period a year ago. The biggest reason for this rise was the Toronto Blue Jays baseball team, which Rogers owns, the ability to once again play home games and televise them from the Rogers Center in Toronto.
Last year at this time, the Blue Jays were playing home games in the United States due to travel restrictions imposed by COVID.
Across all business units, Rogers earned just over $3.8 billion in the quarter, up eight percent from last year, and posted a profit of $409 million, a 35 percent increase from a year ago.
The cost of the outage has not yet been accounted for
All of that financial performance, however, came before July 8, when the company’s network was destroyed by a botched upgrade that caused cascading outages across the country.
WATCH | Canadians react to massive Rogers outage:
Major Rogers outage hits businesses, customers across Canada
Rogers customers were caught off guard by Friday’s massive outage involving both mobile and internet networks, which also caused widespread disruption to banks, businesses and some emergency services across Canada.
Rogers estimates it expects to issue about $150 million in rebates to customers as compensation for the outage, and has pledged to spend billions in capital investment to upgrade its systems to ensure it doesn’t happen again.
“The investments we are making to improve the reliability of our networks are the right things to do and will not affect our pricing in this highly competitive market,” a company spokesperson told CBC News this week.
Rogers has also officially pushed back its self-imposed deadline to finalize its merger with Shaw until the end of the year. When the merger was first proposed in early 2021, both sides expected it to be completed by now, but regulatory delays have pushed the deadline to July 31.
On Wednesday, the company revealed that it does not expect to be able to make the deal official until the end of this year.
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