Mobile Internet helping Rogers thrive

TORONTO, CANADA: Canada's infatuation with services like YouTube and iTunes as well as a thirst for high-speed Internet over mobile phones is helping Rogers Communications Inc thrive in a tough economy, its chief executive officer said on Monday.

"The demand for people to consume information, entertainment and communications is insatiable," Rogers CEO Nadir Mohamed said at an industry conference in Toronto. "Our job is to figure out how to deliver it best."

While earlier discussions of data revenue mostly concerned simple text messages and wireless e-mail, the focus is changing rapidly, he said. Canadians are increasingly using their smartphones to browse the Internet and use data-rich applications.

Those programs -- from mapping software to entertainment and games -- eat up more bandwidth, which bodes well for companies like Rogers, which owns Canada's biggest wireless carrier.

"We tend to think of them as consumer applications, but the same thing is happening on the business side," Mohamed said.

In April, Rogers said the recession had not dampened subscriber appetites for feature-rich smartphones that connect to the Internet, as some analysts had warned.

Toronto-based Rogers said it activated more than 360,000 smartphones -- including Apple's iPhone and Research In Motion's BlackBerry -- during the quarter ended March 31.

The results eased concerns by analysts that users might cut their monthly telecom spending to conserve money during the economic downturn.

Lower subscriber usage means smaller revenues for carriers like Rogers and its main rivals Telus Corp and BCE Inc.

Mohamed took over the company reins from founder Ted Rogers, who died late last year at age 75. Mohamed was previously the president of the company's core communications division.

Rogers shares dropped 2.4 percent to C$30.34 on the Toronto Stock Exchange on Monday morning.