(Adds details from earnings release, background)
By Alastair Sharp
TORONTO, April 18 (Reuters) - Canada's Rogers Communications Inc RCIb.TO RCI.N on Tuesday reported a sharp rise in first-quarter profit and higher revenue as it boasted a surprising large jump in new wireless customers.
Rogers, the country's largest wireless company by market share, added 60,000 net postpaid wireless subscribers in the quarter, much more than the 34,000 additions analysts at RBC Capital Markets had expected.
The Toronto-based cable, telecom and media company said its average wireless customer paid C$59.96 a month for service, up from C$58.54 a year ago.
The wireless performance should prove a warm welcome for the family-controlled company's new chief executive, Joe Natale, at its annual meeting on Wednesday. Rogers secured his early release from contractual obligations with rival Telus Corp.
Natale, a 12-year Telus veteran, was widely credited with leading Telus' customer-service strategy, which helped the Vancouver-based company consistently have the lowest rate of churn - the rate at which customers dropped their services - in the Canadian wireless industry.
It said it had net income of C$294 million ($220 million) or 57 Canadian cents per share for the three months to March 31, up from C$230 million or 44 Canadian cents per share, a year earlier. believe strong Q1/17 results should meet what are rising expectations driven by better-than-expected wireless postpaid and Internet subscriber growth and renewed wireless EBITDA growth." RBC analyst Drew McReynolds wrote in a note.
Revenue rose 3 percent to C$3.34 billion, Rogers said, as wireless growth offset a fall in its media division and a flat performance from its cable unit.
On an adjusted basis, the company earned 64 Canadian cents a share. It kept its dividend payout steady at 48 cents.
Analysts had on average expected Rogers to earn 57 Canadian cents a share on revenue of C$3.365 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
($1 = 1.3380 Canadian dollars)