Slash LaneCompany president Nadir Mohammed made the revelation during a conference call covering Rogers' fiscal second quarter results for the three-month period ended June 30, in which the carrier said it earned C$301 million, or 47 cents per share.
"We didn't anticipate that we would launch that device under any model this year," he said.
Mohammed noted that demand for his firm's usual array of handsets "slammed on the brakes" on June 9th, the same day Rogers announced plans to begin selling the Apple phone the following month.
Subscriber interest in the iPhone eventually led Rogers and Nokia to half the price of Nokia's similarly-equipped 8GB N95 handset to match the 8GB iPhone's $200 price tag in a bid to re-stimulate demand.
Mohammed also acknowledged that the discount Rogers is offering on each iPhone is the largest in the company's history. Still, Apple's approach is said to be "highly, highly attractive" given that the carrier expects the iPhone's higher average revenue per user to more than make up for its initial subsidy investment.
The executive said non disclosure agreements with Apple prevent him from revealing the number of subscribers who switched to the carrier to obtain an iPhone compared to those who simply upgraded. He did, however, reveal that Rogers' agreement with Apple included an up-front commitment to purchase $150 million worth of the new 3G handsets.
Assuming an average non-subsidzed price of $450 per handset, Rogers would have agreed to purchase approximately 333,000 of the new iPhones.
The carrier said it's prepared to expand upon that momentary commitment as necessary.
Charles Martin
Malcolm Owen
William Gallagher
Christine McKee
Wesley Hilliard
Andrew Orr
30 Comments
"Halve the price", not "half the price".... FFS!
...The carrier said it's prepared to expanded upon that momentary commitment as necessary....
"expand".
On topic, it seems Rogers is happy because they are absolutely raping the customers on data fees?
If so 300,000 new iPhones, each say will run up $200 in data fees in a few months since the start of it, that equals $60 million in data fees alone.
Yup, no wonder they are happy. Their purchase of $150 million worth of handsets breaks even within a year if you include call, tariff, data fees, etc. etc.
Just as a very rough estimate. Remember I am finance n00b.
"expand".
On topic, it seems Rogers is happy because they are absolutely raping the customers on data fees?
If so 300,000 new iPhones, each say will run up $200 in data fees in a few months since the start of it, that equals $60 million in data fees alone.
Yup, no wonder they are happy. Their purchase of $150 million worth of handsets breaks even within a year if you include call, tariff, data fees, etc. etc.
Just as a very rough estimate. Remember I am finance n00b.
Well, they are better than they were when they first announced their iPhone packages. They changed their tune pretty quickly and allowed more a al carte offerings. You can keep your old voice plan (or get another) and add on data at $30/6GB. You can add VVM as a stand alone option or add in a Value Pack that includes 2500 SMS and a couple other minor items.
$30/6GB is damn near unlimited for me. Sure, it would be a fool that bought into the lies about 'normal' and 'expected' data usage to justify their initial offering, but they have certainly improved. Assuming for most, that 6GB is the same as unlimited, I think I got as good a deal as those in the US are getting.
$56/month gets me:
6GB data, Unlimited Incoming, unlimited N/E starting at 7PM, 250 daytime minutes, 100 Canadian LD minutes, Visual Voicemail and Call Display. As always in Canada, we also pay the same-as-theft System Access Fee ($7), 911 fee ($0.50) and tax on all. But, in terms of raw pricing, this seems comparable to carriers in other countries.
But they are still going to make a killing off of every dollar they invest in buying iPhones.
"Halve the price", not "half the price".... FFS!
If we're being anal then FFS ... I assume to mean fix the fing spelling isn't correct. They spelled the word just fine... its the usage that's incorrect. FFU as it were...
On track..
I see this as just another of the many good signs Apple has going for it when it comes to their new cellular product line.
Apple in a time when it was THOUGHT that the MP3 player market was pretty much carved up "by the majors"... ahem.. Apple swoops in with the iPod and snatches up all their lunch money... :
Repeat with the cell phone industry?
Still too early to tell but the signs are certainly looking better than good...
Oh and all the while Apple is slowly but surely nibbling away at Microsofts desktop market share... Gotta love it... No wonder Gates retired...
Dave
I live right in the heart of downtown Toronto, ON.
I mean RIGHT downtown... blocks from Eaton Centre.
There are 2 large size Rogers retail outlets and 3
small Rogers franchise cellular outlets within 3
blocks radius of me and I've been to every store
to see and "experience" the sales cycle. As of this
past Sat. NO one in the larger stores asked if I
wanted assistance or info on the iPhone I looked at.
And in all stores, I approached a rep and specifically
asked how much they had left in stock and how
many have they actually sold. "Lots" was the common
response, but when pushed to compare to their
regular line-up of phones, well thats a dif. story...
NOT one store was sold out and only one store said
they sold 18 units, but the rest did NOT sell more
than 12 units in the past two weeks... and this in the
busiest areas of Toronto and the whole country !
So, you're full of crap Rogers. You sold more
Blackberry's from those stores than iPhones. I asked.
If you had to guarantee a $150 million iPhone contract
330,000 handsets is a sh*t-load to catch up on.
Enough with the high prices, poor service and lies !!
We're all fed up with your PR BS.