Rogers Sees $30 Million Financial Hole

The Canadian mobile phone operator Rogers Wireless is reported to be experiencing some financial problems lately, which drove the company into leveraging the price tags of some of the handsets it currently has in its offering. Reportedly, Rogers is now offering its BlackBerry devices at prices $25-$50 higher than before.

The wireless carrier seems to have a $30 million deficit in its acquisition budget, which determined it to increase the prices to the aforementioned devices. This way, users that were on their way to purchase a BlackBerry Curve 83xx from Rogers will have to pay $149.99 for the device, up $50 from the previous tag. The price of the Curve 8900 went up to $224.99, increased with $25, while the Bold now sells for $299.99, up $50.

What the carrier is said to have done here is to pass the costs of its acquisitions onto its subscribers. Given the size of the deficit, $30 million, it is rather unusual that the senior executive team has discovered the problem only recently. Given the fact that the fiscal-hole has just been discovered, the newly operated price increases might not be just a coincidence.

The problem that the carrier discovered has been spotted in an email from a Rogers executive that states the following: “On Wednesday, the senior executive team realized that they were over budget $30 million dollars on their cost of acquisition. How I don’t know why it took so long. [sic] They then did their knee jerk response. Your DBM’s and other local managers know nothing more than this and are in the dark as much as we are on this other than we were told VERBALLY that in market quotes would be honored for 30 days from today. The exception lists are due Monday and only for non named accounts. I have requested in every region for a positioning statement and to this moment have not heard a response. If it makes you feel any better the retail has even more uncertainty.”

For sure, the news comes as a surprise for everyone, for it is not that easy to slip a financial problem this size. And while the exact cause is still unknown, an official explanation will certainly surface in the near future.