Canadian Wireless Growth
With Telus Corp. posting its Q4 results today, wireless subscriber growth in 2005 saw 1.8 million net additions, the highest growth since 2001. The penetration rate climbed to 5.1% to 52%. “Fears of a slowdown are premature and unfounded based on the results of the past year,” said Telus CFO Bob MacFarlane. While the industry may be patting itself on the back, market penetration lags behind the U.S. and, of course, Europe where markets are nearly saturated. The growth of Canada's wireless market may be held back by the carriers' focus on “profitable growth”, which means none of them - Telus, Bell, Rogers - are willing to get into a price war to attract customers. This is good news for the investment community, which loves higher ARPU and low churn, but not the best market for consumers. Still, there is plenty of room left for growth, particularly in younger demographic that regard wireless as key part of their lifestyle.
February 19th, 2006 at 4:42 pm
Which makes the survey they sent me yesterday asking about Digital TV via my phoneline and PVRs (like do I like Tivo, how much would I pay per month …) very, very interesting.