Rogers Q4 2022: Profits Up 25%, 193,000 New Wireless Subscribers

Rogers today announced its unaudited financial and operating results for the fourth quarter and full year ended December 31, 2022.

Overall, Rogers reported a total of $4.16 billion in revenue for Q4 2022, up 6% year-over-year from Q4 2021. Quarterly service revenue was also up 6%, to $3.43 billion.

For the entirety of 2022, Rogers posted $15.39 billion in total revenue and $13.30 billion in service revenue, up 5% and 6%, respectively, from 2021.

Net income for the full year was $1.68 billion. The fourth quarter alone brought in $508 million, up a whopping 25% year-over-year.

Q4 also represented a healthy increase in net income from $371 million in the September quarter, when Rogers’ Q3 bottom line took a massive hit after the company recorded $150 million in refunds made to customers as compensation for last year’s nationwide network outage.

“We delivered strong results in the fourth quarter and for the full year,” said Tony Staffieri, President and CEO of Rogers.

“We executed with discipline and delivered impressive growth in Wireless and Media, while setting solid growth targets for 2023. We remain committed to the Shaw transaction and delivering more choice, more value, and more innovation to Canadians.”

Rogers added a total of 193,000 new postpaid mobile phone subscribers between October and December, up 37% compared to the year-ago quarter. The telecom giant did end the quarter with a net prepaid mobile phone subscriber loss of 7,000, though.

In 2022 as a whole, Rogers added a total of 634,000 mobile phone subscribers — more than double the previous year. An industry-leading 545,000 of these additions were postpaid subscribers, the company’s strongest results since 2007, while 89,000 were prepaid lines.

Other key figures from Rogers’s unaudited results include:

  • Adjusted EBITDA for Q4 was up 10% to $1.68 billion, and for the full year was up 9% to $6.39 billion.
  • Diluted earnings per share for Q4 2022 were $1.00, up an impressive 25% from $0.80 during the same period in 2021.
  • Adjusted diluted earnings per share for the quarter rose 14% year-over-year to $1.09.
  • Media revenue grew a notable 17% in the quarter.
  • The company achieved or exceeded all of its guidance ranges for 2022.

“For the full-year 2023, we expect growth in total service revenue and adjusted EBITDA will drive higher free cash flow,” Rogers said. The company is forecasting an increase of 4-7% in total service revenue and 5-8% in adjusted EBITDA this year.

“In 2023, we expect to have the financial flexibility to maintain our network advantages and to continue to return cash to shareholders.”

Rogers’ guidance for 2023 did not include expected capital expenditures on its proposed $26 billion takeover of Shaw Communications, which still hangs in the balance.

Last month, the Rogers-Shaw transaction cleared its largest hurdle when the Federal Court of Appeal rejected the Competition Bureau’s appeal of a federal tribunal decision to approve the deal.

However, it still requires Industry, Science and Technology Minister François-Philippe Champagne’s approval of the transfer of Shaw-owned Freedom Mobile’s licences to Quebecor’s Vidéotron, a $2.85 billion sale that’s part of the broader merger, to proceed.

According to a report from earlier this week, Minister Champagne wants concrete commitments to wireless affordability from both Rogers and Quebecor before he lets them move forward. Rogers, Shaw, and Quebecor have extended the deadline for both the merger and the Freedom-Vidéotron deal to February 17, 2023.

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