Rogers Communications Inc. (RCI) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

For the period ending June 30, 2023

July 26, 2023 8:00 a.m. ET

Prepared Remarks

Questions and Answers

Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the Rogers Communications Inc Second Quarter 2023 Results Conference Call. As a remainder, all participants are in a listen-only mode. And the conference is being recorded.

I would now like to turn the conference over to Paul Carpino, Vice President of Investor Relations with Rogers Communications. Please go ahead, Mr. Carpino.

Paul Carpino

Great. Thanks, Ariel, and good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. Today, I'm here with President and Chief Executive Officer, Tony Staffieri; and our Chief Financial Officer, Glenn Brandt.

Today's discussion will include estimates and other forward-looking information from which our actual results could differ. Please review the cautionary language in today's earnings report and in our the 2022 annual report regarding the various factors, assumptions and risks that could cause our actual results to differ.

With that, let me turn it over to Tony to begin.

Tony Staffieri

Thank you, Paul, and good morning, everyone. I'm pleased to report that Rogers delivered strong results in the second quarter, the seventh consecutive quarter of growth for the company. These results reflect disciplined execution and healthy momentum in our core businesses against a healthy backdrop. Our country continues to grow at a robust pace, led by immigration and you see we're off to a good start in operating at a new level of scale. The second quarter represents our first full quarter since closing Shaw, and we're very pleased with the quality of the Shaw assets and our early momentum. They have a robust network, an extensive track record in the West and an exceptional customer service team. Together, we now operate Canada's only national Wireline network passing 9.8 million homes with 4.8 million customers.

This builds on our Rogers 5G wireless network, which supports 11.4 million mobile subscribers, the largest and fastest-growing customer base in Canada. In our industry, scale and quality of assets matter. With Shaw, we have both, and we are already seeing some early successes and wins. We have seen market share gains in the West, including double-digit subscriber growth, and we expect our share in the West to continue to grow in the coming quarters. Earlier this month, we introduced Rogers Internet and TV services in Shaw territory, along with bundled services across our channels. The early uptake on these services is encouraging. Although early days, we're encouraged by the strong store traffic as loyal Shaw and Rogers customers look to bundle more services given our stronger value proposition in the West. I expect this interest will continue as we make good progress on integrating our networks and systems to offer a seamless customer experience.