57% of Canadians had access to four or more carriers in 2012: CRTC report

Fifty-seven per cent of Canadians had access to four or more wireless carriers in 2012, while a 6.3 per cent increase in revenues to $20.37 billion for wireless providers was powered by higher use of data services, newly released CRTC data shows. According to data in the CRTC’s annual Communications Monitoring Report, released Thursday, wireless revenues per user went up in nine out of 10 provinces in 2012, including in three of the four provinces that have four or more competitors. The CRTC data said average wireless revenue per user (ARPU) rose 9 per cent to $61.87 in Ontario, where 63 per cent of the population had access to four “facilities-based” competitors; 2 per cent to $51.95 in Quebec, where 82 per cent of consumers had access to at least four providers; and by 1.2 per cent to $63.56 in British Columbia, where 59 per cent of subscribers could choose from four or more carriers. In Alberta, where four or more carriers were available to 55 per cent of the population, ARPU fell by two per cent to $73.50, though it remains the highest among all the provinces. ARPU rose an average of 4.45 per cent across all ten Canadian provinces, led by Saskatchewan, where 91 per cent of subscribers have access to two or fewer carriers, and which saw its ARPU grow by 10.8 per cent to $63.30 per month. It fell by 13.9 per cent to $83.62 in Canada’s Northern territories, where 93 per cent of the population also had access to two or fewer providers. “Canadian families spent an average of $67 per month on wireless services, up from $61 the previous year,” the CRTC said in a release Thursday, adding that wireless providers received an average of $60.71 per month in revenues from each of their subscribers, up 4.7 per cent from $57.98 in 2011. The federal government has prioritized a policy objective of establishing four competing wireless carriers across the country in the hopes that increased competition will help lower consumer prices. Wireless incumbents BCE Inc., Rogers Communications Inc. and Telus Corp. launched high-profile public campaigns this summer against some of the government’s policies, which are designed to support that objective, and have argued that the industry is already competitive enough. According to the CRTC data, wireless revenue growth was powered by higher consumer spending on data services, as wireless subscribers bought more smartphones in 2012. Wireless data revenues climbed to $6.26 billion in 2012, up 23.5 per cent from $5.07 billion in 2011, the CRTC said. That growth nearly matched the $1.27 billion in total wireless revenue growth during the year, the commission said. Roaming data revenues, which are received from consumers who use their devices while piggybacking on other providers’ networks, climbed 50 per cent during the year, from $525.3 million in 2011 to $784.6 million in 2012. The CRTC, which has launched a fact-finding exercise on regulate roaming rates, said roaming revenues relating to voice calls fell 3.8 per cent in 2012 to $799 million. The higher data revenues are likely related, in part, to Canadians’ uptake of Internet-ready smartphone devices, as 51 per cent of Canada’s wireless subscribers owned a smartphone in 2012, up from 38 per cent a year earlier. Thirteen million wireless customers had broadband access on their mobile phones in 2012, up from 12 million in 2011, the report said. The rise in total wireless ARPU can also be partially explained by a higher number of consumers who subscribed to a postpaid wireless service contract, as opposed to a less costly prepaid plan. Eighty-one per cent of wireless subscribers were on postpaid contracts in 2012, compared to 78 per cent in 2011, the CRTC said. New entrant carrier Wind Mobile said in mid-2012 that it was abandoning its strategy of targeting low-revenue, prepaid subscribers, and the incumbent carriers have also bled prepaid subscribers over the past two years as they competed for more lucrative, postpaid subscribers. The report showed that new entrant providers gained some ground on the wireless incumbents in 2012, as they boosted their share of the industry’s revenues from one per cent in 2011 to three per cent in 2012. Those gains came partly at Rogers’ expense as the industry-leading wireless carrier's share of wireless revenues slipped from 37 per cent in 2011 to 36 per cent in 2012. Bell's and Telus' share of the industry’s revenues stood still at 28 per cent in 2012, the commission said. Wireless companies spent an average of $7.56 per subscriber on capital expenditures in 2012, the commission said, up 7.2 per cent from $7.06 in 2011. Telecom companies spent a total of $9.6 billion in capex in 2012, up from $9.5 billion in 2011, the commission added. The CRTC’s Communications Monitoring Report is designed to provide a snapshot of Canada’s broadcasting, digital media and telecommunications industries. In a release Thursday, the commission said Canadian communications revenues totalled $60.7 billion in 2012, including $16.8 billion in broadcasting service revenues and $43.9 billion in telecommunications revenues. The average Canadian family, it added, spent $185 per month on communications services, up from $181 per month in 2011, including $52 per month on TV subscriptions, $35 per month on home phone services, and $31 per month on the Internet. Canadians’ Internet use also surged in 2012, the commission reported, as the average residential Internet subscriber downloaded 28.4 GB of data per month, up 56 per cent from 17.9 per cent in 2011. The report said that, in 2012, 54 per cent of households had access to fibre-based Internet and IPTV services, up from 34 per cent in 2011 and 22 per cent in 2010, as companies like SaskTel, Telus, Bell Aliant Inc. and Bell Canada continued to expand their fibre-to-the-node and fibre-to-the-home networks. Canada's residential broadband penetration, excluding satellite services, remained at 97 per cent nationally in 2012, the same as in 2011. Broadband penetration for rural areas rose slightly, from 83 per cent in 2011 to 85 per cent in 2012, the CRTC said. The report said incumbent Internet service providers held a 91.4 per cent share of the national Internet market in 2012, down from 92.4 per cent in 2011 as smaller providers’ combined market share rose to 8.6 per cent in 2012. The commission’s data showed that TV revenues continued to shift from traditional, over-the-air broadcasters to specialty, pay, pay-per-view, and video-on-demand services. Private conventional TV stations’ revenues fell five per cent to $2.04 billion in 2012, while other types of TV services' combined revenues rose 5.9 per cent to $4 billion, the commission said. Revenues from broadcast distribution services rose 1.1 per cent in 2012 to $8.7 billion from $8.6 billion in 2011. —With reporting by Nicholas Kyonka at nkyonka@thewirereport.ca with files from Simon Doyle at sdoyle@thewirereport.ca and editing by Anja Karadeglija at akarad@thewirereport.ca

57% of Canadians had access to four or more carriers in 2012: CRTC report

Broadcast | September 26, 2013

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57% of Canadians had access to four or more carriers in 2012: CRTC report

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