Earnings Labs

Rogers Communications Inc. (RCI)

Q2 2023 Earnings Call· Wed, Jul 26, 2023

$36.19

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Transcript

Operator

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. [Operator Instructions] 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

Analyst

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

Analyst

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. To support this customer experience, we've extensively trained our frontline…

Glenn Brandt

Analyst

Thanks, Tony, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for sharing your time with us this morning. Rogers second quarter results reflect continued sector-leading operational and financial performance, driven by strong execution by the Rogers team, which now includes the integration of our former Shaw Communications employees, making us stronger. As well, our second quarter results incorporate for the first time a full quarter of Shaw's financial results. In Wireless, our second quarter service revenue was up a very healthy 7%. This growth has been driven by sustained and consistent sector-leading growth in our mobile phone subscribers combined with careful management of our pricing plans. Postpaid mobile phone customers grew an impressive 170,000 net additions in the quarter, reflecting a 39% increase from our prior year's second quarter as Canadians continue to choose Rogers more than any other wireless carrier. For seventh consecutive quarters now, Rogers has led wireless market share growth and delivered healthy financial results in a strong wireless market. Through the first half of 2023, we have added 265,000 net wireless customer additions year-to-date and 622,000 net wireless customer additions over the past 12 months, far outpacing our peers and reflecting a 6% increase in the customer base over that period. To be very clear, that's the organic growth over and above the 0.5 million mobile customers we've added with the Shaw acquisition. Our postpaid mobile phone churn performance remained healthy at under 1% and coming in at 0.87% for the quarter. Wireless ARPU for the quarter was $56.79, down 3% from last year as we welcomed Shaw Mobile customers from Western Canada into our subscriber base. These subscribers are on discounted, but high-value bundled Wireless and Wireline plans and remain a key priority in our integration with Shaw. Excluding the impact of these discounted customers, the underlying…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Vince Valentini of TD Securities. Please go ahead.

Vince Valentini

Analyst

I have a two-pronged question coming out of the CRTC decision on Monday related to the arbitration on the MVNO rate. First off, do you have any updated thoughts on how this could impact the competitiveness of Freedom Mobile and Quebecor, do you have any incremental concerns coming out of that decision about what they might do in the market, especially as we head into back-to-school season? So maybe just your comments on sort of on the wireless competition environment. And the second prong to it is, do you see any read-throughs here to other decisions? I mean this seems like a one-off file where it wasn't the CRTC setting a rate. They were just picking 1 of the 2 rates that was proposed to them. And obviously, the MVNO regime is a temporary regime as opposed to TPIA that's more permanent. So your thoughts just on the broader implications potentially of the way they awarded that MVNO decision.

Tony Staffieri

Analyst

And we received the CRTC's decision at the end of day on Monday, and we're reviewing it. As you would expect, we're considering next steps, including potential appeals. And so there's not a lot I want to say on this call for obvious reasons. What I will say in the overall scheme of things, we're not going to be distracted and are going to continue to manage our business and investments accordingly. I come back to -- at a macro level, we announced today, we're increasing guidance and that's after a very thoughtful review of all the risks and in particular, opportunities in front of us. And so you ought to think about the decision in the context of the overall business that we have in front of us in the back half of the year. I will say, Vince, I did see your note, and I think you got it right, and I'll just leave it at that.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Sebastiano Petti of JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Sebastiano Petti

Analyst

Just wanted to circle back on the wireless ARPU. I think one in your prepared remarks, you mentioned, excluding the impact of the discounted customers, ARPU has remained consistent, I believe, is a term year-over-year. Just any update on how we should be thinking about the puts and takes on an organic underlying basis in wireless ARPU for the balance of the year? Obviously, we have the 3Q impact from the network outage. But how should the team -- how should we think about it over the next couple of quarters here as you are integrating Shaw as well?

Glenn Brandt

Analyst

Yes. I think -- thank you, Sebastian, for the question. I think when we look at ARPU, you can see from the growth in service revenue and the growth in our margin. Our network customer additions are coming in at strong ARPU levels and contributions. I expect that to continue through Q3 as you've acknowledged in your question, we're flat year-over-year in Q2 on ARPU when you pull out the impact of the Shaw customers coming in. There was a little bit lighter roaming revenue on a year-over-year basis in Q2 in terms of growth. Everything I'm seeing and hearing reported in the media is that the travel season in the third quarter is expected to be strong. And so I would anticipate that to roll through in Q3 roaming as well. That's a busier travel season. I think overall, the trending that you've seen through the first half of the year, I expect to continue adjust the course for the credits that we had through Q3. But other than that, I anticipate continued strong market share, strong revenue contributions coming from those new customers added in the third quarter as well as the customers that we've been adding over the last 7 quarters. So I think those trends will continue into the third quarter.

Sebastiano Petti

Analyst

And then just a quick follow-up as well. Just thinking about the synergies. I mean integration efforts pacing ahead $48 million of hard dollar synergy realization thus far in the second quarter. I mean, obviously, we've danced around this several times over the last couple of quarters. But I mean, is there conservatism baked into that synergy guide? Obviously, it's great to see the overall outlook improved, which implies better organic trends. But as we're thinking about the integration efforts and the synergy realization within the balance of 2023, I mean, is there any puts and takes or any -- I think Tony described it as hiccups that perhaps might be baked into that, that we should be thinking about any dissynergies?

Glenn Brandt

Analyst

No. No, I think we're 3 or I guess, now 4 months into post-close driving the synergies. I'm a cautious individual. We're a little bit ahead of plan, but 4 months isn't something to start pinning trends on. And so we're being conservative, perhaps. But I think if you look at that $48 million, the synergies identified in quarter and realized in quarter and Q2, those are sustained synergies. Those will carry on. We'll build on them through Q3 and Q4. We're reaffirming the guidance around the $600 million run rate within the first 12 months. I anticipate achieving that in early 2024. I'm comfortable with where we're pacing, I'm comfortable that we're a little bit ahead of plan, and we're not letting up on it. So no, don't read anything more into it than we're satisfied with where we are and driving to build on that.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Tim Casey of BMO. Please go ahead.

Tim Casey

Analyst

You alluded in your comments that you're encouraged by what you've seen out West. I know it's early days, but could you talk a little bit about what you're hearing and seeing from Shaw customers and your ability to retain them and as well migrate them up into better plans or things of that nature?

Tony Staffieri

Analyst

A couple of things. One is, as I said in my comments, we are very encouraged by the quality of the asset we're seeing. I'll talk about the wireline side of it, in the first instance, what we're seeing is a very good quality network. And I'll come back to some of the initial pre-closing thoughts around lack of investment. What I can tell you is the Shaw team had continued to invest robustly in the quality of the network, not just the node segmentation, but more importantly, in mid and high split that contributes to terrific network performance on Internet and resiliency. And so what you see is a portfolio of cable customers with extremely solid and low churn. And so we're very encouraged by that, and it's clear to us the work we need to do around cable network, which is more about expanding the network, as I've talked about before, particularly around recently developed areas that we think are opportunities in terms of homes passed and the penetration within that footprint. And so very pleased with the quality of the network. And what we're seeing as a result of that and given the brand of the Rogers 5G network in the West is very good uptick in interest, and this is all organically in the first 90 to 120 days when you include the month of July of interest of customers walking into our stores, Shaw stores, which are now fully branded as Rogers stores looking for the bundle. And that was good to see, and we were very encouraged. And as I said, that was without necessarily promoting and exciting the base in doing that. It was all happening organically. And so the willingness of the customer to bundle early days, but is, as I said, very encouraging. On the Shaw Mobile customers, we've been actively moving them up to our 5G network and ideally getting them on to higher-priced plans. And I would say that migration has been going extremely well, as you would expect. They very much welcome the opportunity to get on to the Rogers 5G network and the quality of that network, particularly in B.C. and Alberta.

Tim Casey

Analyst

Is it worth calling out in terms of your early subscriber performance any dramatic changes in terms of regional strengths? Or I guess what I'm getting is Ontario still the main growth driver? Or are you seeing already any shift out West?

Tony Staffieri

Analyst

The growth comes from across the country, but I would say we continue to perform strongly in Ontario. But importantly, what we have seen is a very good shift in market share in the West, particularly if you look at B.C. and Alberta. What I can tell you, not getting into too many details on a regional basis. is that our market share gains on a net add perspective is up double digit in terms of points in each of B.C. and Alberta. And that's for a number of reasons that I just talked about in terms of not just the bundling opportunities, but as we focus on new to Canada, the primary areas are clearly focused on in Vancouver and Toronto as the major destination markets. And those are two strongholds that we do particularly well in that segment. And so we're pleased with the share that we're getting on new to Canada, and that's distributed amongst those two. And so we're pleased with the results we're seeing there. So again, just to reiterate, it's happening in all the key markets. And we continue to be focused on managing our business in that way.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Dave Barden of Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Please go ahead.

Matt Griffiths

Analyst

It's Matt sitting in for Dave. First, on the wireless net add performance, obviously, very strong in the quarter. I was wondering if you could give some like additional color on the split between -- I think you alluded to doing well with new Canadians. So this was between kind of net adds that are new to the market versus your ability to win those who are switching. And maybe if you could provide some color among the -- in the past, you've talked about kind of those three buckets where you're going to be focusing your synergy efforts, people, contracts and content. I was wondering if you could kind of give us an update on where the early dollars are coming from and where the -- where we should see maybe an uptick as we move through the year?

Tony Staffieri

Analyst

I'll start with the first part of your question, and Glenn will talk to the synergy realization part of your question. In terms of the wireless loadings that you see and the strong performance there. It's really attributable to a number of factors. If you were to look at the segments, I start at a very macro level. We continue to see population growth in this country. leading amongst the developed countries. And so we're very focused on the share we get there. And that continues to be majority share and very strong share performance. So we aren't seeing anything change there. And as you would expect, that's a good part of the growth in the industry. If you were to look at last quarter, now that everyone's reported, what you saw was a continuation of postpaid mobile base for the country that is growing in and around 5%, depending on what you include or exclude, which is very healthy in a continuation of what we saw in 2022. As we look to the second quarter, our sense is the market continues to grow at that size. So it's a very healthy pace. Again, immigration is part of it, but the continuation of penetration rates in Canada, which lagged the U.S. still is the second growth opportunity for us. And so we continue to focus on both of those in terms of segments. If you were to look at new to the category, of course, you can't build a business just based on new to the category. And so as you would expect, we continue to do well on not only the porting customers amongst the players in Canada, but that's combined with a continuation of low churn overall. While it's up slightly year-over-year, that's just really attributable to the competitive dynamics that we've been playing in and are doing well in. And so it's a combination of all those factors, Matt.

Glenn Brandt

Analyst

And then, Matt, on your question on synergies, those three buckets that you highlighted, those remain the broad categories across which we're driving the synergies. It's early days. I would say that we've realized the efficiencies across third-party vendor spend as well as early efforts on removing the duplication and driving efficiencies across our in-house operations. And so that -- I don't want to give any more clarity or granularity to the $48 million. It's -- we're 4 months in, 3 months reflected in these results and more to come.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Drew McReynolds of RBC. Please go ahead.

Drew McReynolds

Analyst

Yes. Two housekeeping and then a little bit of a bigger picture maybe for you, Glenn, on the housekeeping. Working capital, just outlook for the year, just if you can give us a little bit of help on that one as well as the cash tax rate. And then on the bigger picture one, we've obviously seen a lot of increase in monthly data that's available to Canadians right across all the pricing umbrellas. Can you comment on where we stand on data usage per month. And whether we're at the point where just there's so much data offered on a monthly basis that it's less of kind of incentive for migration as it once was? Maybe that's not the case. But if you could just provide an update there, that would be great.

Glenn Brandt

Analyst

On the working capital, we're working through the impact of rolling in Shaw, and so you're going to see the usual seasonal measures going through our working capital from quarter-to-quarter. I don't anticipate that to have a material impact on our debt or our leverage. I do anticipate that quarter-after-quarter, we will see delevering as the quarters go by, increasing in terms of actual debt repayment, but then the delevering, particularly being driven by earnings growth, and you've seen that already in the first quarter. There's not really anything to call out on working capital with the size of our balance sheet, the size of our investment and the size of our free cash flow, it's all manageable within that envelope. So unless there's anything particular you want me to look at, we're managing inventory levels. We're managing receivable levels. We're not seeing any undue pressure from economic pressures or anything within our receivable base. Our experience around credit collections and bad debt reserves remain stable. And so nothing to call out there. And then on the cash tax rate on a base of $8.5 billion of annualized EBITDA, you see a free cash flow tax rate of roughly 6% on that base. So if you run the math, you'll see that comes in and around $0.5 billion or so use that as a broad measure for you. That should help you with the modeling.

Tony Staffieri

Analyst

The second part of your question, Drew, in terms of what we're seeing in data usage, it continues to grow at an even faster pace. The average usage is now sitting at just under 10 gigs per month. So it's a very healthy usage growing at a pace of in and around 50% year-on-year. So a very healthy clip. And notwithstanding some of the promotional data buckets you see, we just look at what the customers are telling us. And as I said in my opening comments, they continue to flock to the unlimited plans and the value that offers. And we saw in just this quarter alone double-digit growth rates in the number of customers coming on to the unlimited plans. In the quarter, you would have seen that we launched on 5G, the cap plan, which offers great value. And healthy data bucket size. And for a certain segment, that's a great value proposition to move from a flanker into the 5G network, and it's done what we expected it to do in terms of upselling from lower ARPU plans with very minimal downshifting. The attractiveness of the worry-free unlimited continues to be compelling, and that's what we're seeing customers do, Drew.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Maher Yaghi of Scotiabank. Please go ahead.

Maher Yaghi

Analyst

Maybe I'll start with just a quick housekeeping question and then a follow up with my real question. So on the housekeeping, can you help us understand what the organic EBITDA growth was for wireless and cable, maybe cable, it's easier to calculate. But just help us understand the organic, excluding the Shaw Mobile customer acquisition there. And the question I wanted to ask you is on churn. We saw an increase in churn happening in the quarter year-on-year and sequentially, but more importantly, year-on-year. So probably a lot of things going on with the Freedom -- sorry, with the Shaw Mobile customer acquisition. Can you help us understand what drove the increase and what your expectations are going forward? One last thing I wanted to mention. Thank you for talking about the deleveraging process. It's a point that comes up a lot with discussion with investors. You talked about the divestiture of about $1 billion of assets. Can you help us understand what's in there and the time line?

Glenn Brandt

Analyst

On the organic EBITDA growth, the wireless EBITDA growth of 9% really is very predominantly organic. There is some impact that comes in from rolling in the $0.5 million Shaw customers, Shaw Mobile customers, and so you can reflect that. And that's a portion of the 9% increment on that is probably in the range of 3% or 4% max. And then the rest of it is organic. So think of it in the range of 5% or 6% growth on wireless without the addition of that Shaw Mobile business coming in. Within cable, I think we're looking at growth of probably somewhere in the low single-digit range within cable when you work through the roll in of the acquisition. So cable is up year-over-year as a result of driving the efficiencies even prior to the acquisition on EBITDA, notwithstanding the revenue decline on the top line. But then that gives you an idea of where the level of growth is on wireline. On the deleveraging for the $1 billion, that's predominantly surplus real estate. It's, I think, a time frame of somewhere over the next 6 to 12 months in terms of striking deals. Some of those will close quickly. Some of those may take a little more time to close. But it's very predominantly real estate. We have some additional business operations, which I'm not prepared to announce that we're looking at whether or not they are -- there's an opportunity there, but nothing particularly material certainly in terms of our EBITDA. And don't -- I don't want you to turn your attention to our Sports and Media assets or our sports franchises and start thinking about those. These really are assets that we simply don't need for the core operations of the business.

Tony Staffieri

Analyst

And on your question about churn. If you look at churn in the second quarter, it's up slightly year-on-year, but frankly, it's not inconsistent with what you would have seen over pretty much almost the last year. And I think what you're seeing play out is against a very healthy growing market is, as we all look to capitalize on, on that growing market that there's healthy competition for existing customers. And so that's driving it up slightly. It continues to be well under 1%. So it isn't anything that we're concerned about. In fact, given the success we're seeing in the port markets, we see it as an opportunity. And so our approach is to make sure on balance, we're doing the right thing in terms of churn of our customers. But ultimately, it's how we're doing in the net add market that we hold ourselves accountable to and that continues to be leading in the industry, and we'll continue to focus on that formula.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Aravinda Galappatthige of Canaccord Annuity. Please go ahead.

Aravinda Galappatthige

Analyst

I'll just start where you left off there on wireless churn. Obviously, not surprising to see an uptick there, but I wanted to get your thoughts on the impact you feel that you're more aggressive and more -- I guess, more focused bundling strategies would have on wireless churn going forward. Obviously, on one hand, you have the competitive environment pushing that up. But to what extent do you think that your efforts in terms of wireline, wireless bundling would assist that? I have one more after that.

Tony Staffieri

Analyst

Well, as you would expect, Aravinda, the approach on bundling is giving customers a very simple value proposition that is going to give them Internet solution in and outside of the home or in and outside of the business on a combined basis. And if we continue to do our job right and having the best, most reliable network, then what we do see in our base, is customers that are choosing to bundle have a much lower churn. And so as you would expect, intuitively, the direction is to continue to make it a compelling value proposition, make sure it's backed up with the right network performance, the right customer service and that will continue to drive down churn in both wireless and wireline. So that is the direction of travel and the thesis, and it's playing out in our execution.

Aravinda Galappatthige

Analyst

And just on the synergies, I mean as you sort of integrate the assets, you talked about the creation going ahead of expectations. Is there anything incremental on the CapEx side? I'm not looking for numbers, obviously, at this stage. But is there anything incremental in terms of savings on the CapEx side that you feel you could honor as you integrate these assets?

Glenn Brandt

Analyst

I think, yes, we will see efficiencies on the CapEx side, just as we do on the OpEx side. I don't want you to think of that as being a source of cutting back on our investing in our network infrastructure. That's what's going to drive revenue growth as we improve our -- and grow our footprint and our coverage, both wireline and wireless. And so I think of that as we can do more with what we're investing rather than looking to try and pare back either on the guidance we've given or as you move your modeling out. But yes, we will see efficiencies on the combined spend. We're a larger buyer and that we are already seeing the effects of that in the orders we make, we get more certain supply and we get them at better prices.

Tony Staffieri

Analyst

I'll add to that. When you take that question, Aravinda, with some of the others on the call, we're squarely focused on the cost synergies whether it's OpEx or CapEx, but we haven't lost sight of the thesis of the Shaw acquisition, which is on the revenue side, 1 plus 1, how do we make that 3. And so we have not started to talk about or show you in our results, the revenue synergy upsides that we see. But that's something we continue to be focused on. More to come on that, but the synergies that you're seeing are net of the investments we're making to ensure we capitalize on that revenue upside.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Stephanie Price of CIBC. Please go ahead.

Stephanie Price

Analyst

I had two questions as well. My first is on Internet subs, which were solid in the quarter. Just wondering if you can talk through what you're seeing in the market, if there's any particular areas you'd call out? And any color on West versus East performance within cable?

Tony Staffieri

Analyst

I'll start with that, Stephanie. What we are seeing is the beginning of the size of the market continuing to grow. So what's contributed to the healthy wireless growth in terms of size of market and new to Canada category. That's translating as fast as homes can be built to an uptick in homes passed. And so when you combine that with some of the things we're focused on in terms of getting our penetration up in both East and West. What you see with the 25,000 Internet net adds in the second quarter is the beginning of that pacing of a focus on increasing penetration. So early days in a growing market. So we like what we see. We continue to see an uptick in the speeds that customers are looking for, which plays to our sweet spot given that we have ubiquitous competitive advantage across the entire footprint now in both the East and the West, 100% of 1 gig or more of speed. And so that's starting to play well also. And in terms of the relative performance, it's on both. I talked earlier about wireless uptick in the West. But what we saw in the first 90 days in Q2 is a return-to-growth of penetration in what was the Shaw cable territory. And so we're seeing the improvements come on both from a geographical perspective.

Stephanie Price

Analyst

And then on the wireless side, just hoping you can talk a bit about your thoughts on sustainability of service revenue growth as we head into the second half. Just curious how you're thinking about the more competitive back-to-school and holiday periods here?

Tony Staffieri

Analyst

As we look to the back half, starting with back-to-school, we fully expect, not unlike any other year, that it's going to have healthy competition, not only amongst the 4 players, but amongst the multiple brands that each of us have. And so we're prepared for. And we have our plans in terms of what we expect to do. And so we fully expect it's going to be a healthy backdrop for more competition. Having said that, we expect to continue to perform well on two fronts, not only the subscriber share front across all categories, everything from prepaid to the premium, which we continue to score well on in terms of leading share, and we're pleased with that. And our expectation is we will continue to do that as we lean on what is our competitive advantage, which in wireless really comes down to network and distribution are the two and when you combine with a value proposition that resonates and that's what we'll always keep bobbing and weaving to make sure we get it right for the customer for that moment in time. That's what we're focused on. So we expect to continue to have strong share performance in the back half of the year. And on the ARPU side, as Glenn outlined, we have stable ARPU on a year-on-year basis when you take out the noise. And our expectation is that will continue with even a slight increase as we look to the back half of the year in that underlying subscription ARPU. And so that's the way we're thinking about it. And so you put the two of those together in terms of subs and ARPU mostly on subs, we continue to see healthy growth for us in the back half of the year. And that's really what weighs into the increased guidance that you saw us put out this morning. So it's all part of that view and confidence that we have in the performance.

Paul Carpino

Analyst

Ariel, we have time for two more questions.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Jerome Dubreuil of Desjardin. Please go ahead.

Jerome Dubreuil

Analyst

Yes. First one is on the increased competition in wireless. With your lowered price for the entry plan, the Rogers brand. Just wondering if you can share the percentage of upgrades versus downgrades that you have been seeing in that particular plant since the beginning of May?

Tony Staffieri

Analyst

I think, Jerome, I'll answer the question by starting off with where you started in terms of increased competition. I don't know. I've been watching some of the comments on the industry here in Canada, and I wouldn't describe it as heightened competition at all. It's always been healthy competition. I think each of us are doing different moves on what we want to do and how we want to get share in our focus and we've been very consistent over at least the last year, we're on a brand consolidation strategy. And we're focused on making sure that when you look at the Rogers brand, we have the premium unlimited plans. But how do we widen that and give customers in the flanker category, whether it's with us or with others, an opportunity to get on to a 5G network at an entry point. That really hits the sweet spot as we've said in the past, between the $45 to $65 entry point. And so what we're seeing is, as I said earlier, what we wanted to see on that. And so I'm not going to share the specific stats on that for competitive reasons. But as I said, the vast majority are either net new to that category from our competitors or new to Canada, as I said, but a healthy uptick from the Fido brand with very minimal marginal. I'd almost put it in the category of immaterial downgrades from the unlimited plan. So the impact is having exactly what we expected it to be. But I do want to deflate this notion or a concept that somehow the market has lost its way here in Canada. It continues to be healthy and you don't maintain stable ARPUs unless that's not the case. So I'll just leave it at that, Jerome.

Jerome Dubreuil

Analyst

Yes, interesting. And then second question for me would just be a clarification on the $1 billion noncore assets. I guess I already know the answer. I just want to be sure that this doesn't include anything in terms of macro towers.

Glenn Brandt

Analyst

No. It does not.

Operator

Operator

Our final question comes from David McFadgen of Cormark Securities. Please go ahead.

David McFadgen

Analyst

So two questions. Just when I look at the video net additions, it seems to imply that Shaw's video losses have been raised or maybe they're neutral. I was just wondering if you could comment on that. And what would be driving that because they've traditionally been -- Shaw has traditionally been losing subs every quarter on the cable video side. And then secondly, when you talk about $1 billion in asset sales. Are you contemplating sale leasebacks, which would have an implication for EBITDA? Or is this purely redundant real estate?

Glenn Brandt

Analyst

Maybe if I could start with that one first, because it's a quick, short easy answer. This is not financial engineering. These are straight sales of surplus assets that -- particularly in the real estate side that we don't need. So no, any comments I make around delevering and raising proceeds financial engineering, like sale leaseback doesn't help me. So these are straight sales.

Tony Staffieri

Analyst

Yes. And on the first part of the question, David, in terms of what we're seeing on the video side of things, I talked about Internet in the West, but it's really about bundling wireless Internet and video. And so it's early days, but we are -- I once again reiterate very encouraged by the loyalty and commitment and interest that consumers have shown on a bundling value proposition in the West. And as I said, that's without really exciting the market. We wanted to be very paced and measured about it until we had a more seamless customer experience so that when they called in or walked into our store, we would have the ability to see their combined bills from both a Rogers and Shaw perspective. That only launched on Canada date. And so what you see happening in Q2 really is organic. And so that's why I reiterate, we're very pleased and encouraged by that propensity of the consumer, and you're seeing it in Internet and video, I should have mentioned that as well.

Paul Carpino

Analyst

Thanks, everyone, for joining us. And if there's any additional questions, please feel free to reach out to us.

Tony Staffieri

Analyst

Thanks all.

Glenn Brandt

Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

This concludes today's conference call. You may disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating. And have a pleasant day.