Rogers has just launched three new handsets in the LG Secret, Samsung Gravity and Samsung Propel. Starting off with what is arguably the pick of the pack, the LG Secret has a 2.4″ QVGA touchscreen display, 5 megapixel camera with AF and 30 fps video recording, accelerometer and dual-band HSDPA connectivity. When it arrives in shops it will go for $249.99 on a 3-year or $149.99 on a 3-year when the $7 unlimited browsing or $15 and up value packs are added (old tricks, eh Rogers?). Moving on to the QWERTY handsets, there really isn’t too much there – though we suppose the Propel will find a nice home where a BlackBerry is just too pricey. A 2.2″ 220×176 display, 1.3 megapixel camera, microSD, stereo Bluetooth and dual-band HSDPA make for a pretty decent package at $49.99 for three years. As for the Gravity, it really has nothing but some QWERTY action going for it, what with its quad-band EDGE, 176×220 display, 1.3 megapixel camera and microSD slot. It’ll run you $29.99 with a 3-year contract, but wow… Can you imagine signing a legal document over this thing?
Yesterday morning we dropped some huge news regarding Rogers and its plans to deploy a new LTE network that will launch initially in Vancouver in time for the 2010 Olympics. We went on to detail plans for this new 4G network that go beyond Rogers’ high speed wireless data services to offer relief to its struggling cable network as well. We also revealed that our tipster said this information was gained from a conference call held prior to Rogers’ recent earnings call.
Early this morning Rogers Communications Inc. posted its fourth quarter 2008 financial and operating results. We’re not at all interested in Rogers Cable and Media and we know all you want to know is its ARPU, churn and smartphone sales so if you please bear with us while we get this out of the way we’ll get straight to it: Rogers posted a loss of $138 million CDN ($109.25 million USD). While it was mostly the Media/Print division that dragged Rogers down (Cable had double-digit growth), Wireless didn’t do much for Rogers in the way of short-term favors as retention costs once again ate up a large amount of cash. Net additions totaled 199,000 with 158,000 of those being locked into lengthy contracts causing a modest 2% increase in ARPU for post-paid subscribers which stood at $74.71. A 36 percent increase in demand for wireless data (which is where Rogers unsurprisingly looks to for 18 percent of its overall network revenue) was attributed as the main factor for the increase. Easily home to the best smartphone line-up in North America, Rogers sold 400,000 units with 160,000 of those going to new subscribers – something which costs Rogers a lot of money in the short-term. At least Rogers can comfort themselves knowing that churn dropped to 1.12 percent. It could be worse, right Bell?
