Rogers' Profit Jumps 44 Percent in Q4

Net subscriber additions declined, however.

Rogers, which is also Canada's largest magazine publisher, reported net income of 254 million Canadian dollars ($250 million), or 40 Canadian cents (39 cents) a share. That was up from 176 million Canadian dollars, or 27 Canadian cents a share, a year earlier.

On an adjusted basis, which excludes items like restructuring expenses and contract-renegotiation fees, earnings rose to 47 Canadian cents (46 cents) a share from 30 Canadian cents a share.

Revenue increased 13 percent to 2.69 billion Canadian dollars, or about $2.65 billion.

The mean estimates of analysts polled by Thomson Financial were for earnings of 41 Canadian cents (40 cents) a share on 2.69 billion Canadian dollars ($2.65 billion) in revenue.

In January, Rogers reported it added a net 183,300 subscribers for its wireless retail businesses, down 25 percent. Those results exclude the removal of about 90,400 subscribers from the company's wireless subscriber base due to the second-quarter decommissioning of its Time Division Multiple Access and analog network.

The rate of customer cancellations fell to 1.17 percent from 1.24 percent for postpaid subscribers and 3.12 percent from 3.14 percent for prepaid subscribers. Rogers controls the greatest market share of high-value postpaid subscribers in Canada and has led the way in increasing average revenue per customer. That monthly average rose 6 percent in the fourth quarter, the company said Friday, driven by a 48 percent growth in data revenue.

In January, Rogers said it added 188,900 residential-cable revenue-generating-unit subscribers in the fourth quarter, down 12 percent. The metric is comprised of cable, Internet and phone subscribers.

In late November, shareholders grew wary when Industry Canada introduced a set of rules for the wireless spectrum auction this May that set aside 40 megahertz of wireless spectrum, out of a total of 105 MHZ to be auctioned, in the hopes that a new national wireless carrier will start up in competition with the three incumbents Rogers, BCE Inc. and Telus Corp. .

In addition, a new national entrant, for a fee, will be able to get access to the incumbents' networks over 10 years, as well as use their towers, all in an effort to foster more competition to bring down wireless-phone prices and encourage more innovation in the industry.

Shares of Rogers slipped 26 cents, or 0.7 percent, to $38.32 in late-morning trading Friday.