Rogers Communications misses Wall Street quarterly estimates

Canada's Rogers Communications Inc missed Wall Street estimates for its fourth-quarter core earnings as more people continued to shift to its unlimited data plan, leading to a decrease in its revenues from charging customers for additional data usage.

The company faces stiff competition from rivals BCE Corp and Telus Corp, especially on the pricing of its wireless plans and country wide 5G network roll-out.

Rogers, which started its 5G infrastructure roll-out last week, generated average revenue per user of C$55.26 from its wireless services, compared with C$55.91, a year earlier.

The company's net income fell to C$468 million or 92 Canadian cents per share in the quarter ended Dec. 31, 2019 from C$502 million, or 97 Canadian cents per share, a year earlier.

On an adjusted basis, it earned C$1 per share, missing analysts' average estimate of C$1.02, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.

The Toronto-based company's total revenue rose marginally to C$3.95 billion, just shy of analysts' estimates of C$3.96 billion.

The telecom operator expects full-year revenue for 2020 to be in a range of 2% rise to 2% fall.

(Reporting by Ambhini Aishwarya in Bengaluru; Editing by Vinay Dwivedi)