Wind won’t be as disruptive as T-Mobile, Krstajic says

Shaw Communications Inc. reported revenues of $1.31 billion for the three months ended Aug. 31, an increase from $1.13 billion from the same quarter a year earlier, due to the addition of wireless revenues following its acquisition of Wind Mobile. The company reported $148 million in wireless revenues in the quarter, the second quarter that included the revenues from its purchase of Wind earlier this year. In a conference call with financial analysts Wednesday afternoon, Wind CEO Alek Krstajic was asked about what approach Shaw would take on wireless, and whether the company would mirror the tactics T-Mobile US Inc. used to disrupt the wireless market in the United States. “We see the Canadian market a little bit than the U.S. market, and I don’t think there’s a need to do quite as aggressive an approach as ,” he said. “I mean, you’re not going to see me growing my hair long and wearing a pink t-shirt and crashing competitors’ parties, but in the same way, I don’t think there’s a need to be as disruptive,” Krstajic said in reference to T-Mobile CEO John Legere. He said the company has been “having some great growth already with the 3G network, and I think you’ll see that kind of thing continue in a much more stable approach to how we attack the market.” The company added 39,819 wireless subscribers in the quarter for a total of 1.043 million. ARPU was up three per cent from the previous quarter, to $37.40. Krstajic said in the call that most of those additional wireless customers came from Eastern Canada. Overall, the company saw its total number of subscribers fall by 37,102 to 5.2 million. Residential cable subscribers were down by 22,171 to 1.7 million, while satellite subscribers were down 6,332 to 790,574. The company added 10,341 Internet subscribers in the quarter, reporting a total of 1,772,293, though it lost 18,942 landline customers, which totalled 956,763. The company added 5,521 business customers of its wireline services in the quarter for a total of 573,342. Net income was down 44 per cent, to $154 million compared to $276 million a year earlier. The company said that decrease was primarily due to “a non-recurring gain on the sale of spectrum licenses recorded in the fourth quarter of 2015.” Shaw sold its AWS spectrum to Rogers Communications Inc. last year.

Wind won’t be as disruptive as T-Mobile, Krstajic says

Brief | November 3, 2016

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Wind won’t be as disruptive as T-Mobile, Krstajic says

Brief | November 3, 2016

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