Freedom Mobile is offering deals it rolled out on Black Friday nearly three months after the shopping holiday ended, a sales practice that Canadians shouldn’t get used to.
During a conference call discussing Québecor’s fourth quarter results, CEO Pierre Karl Péladeau said the pricing practice on its wireless plans will make “less and less [sense] in the future.”
Québecor is the parent company of Vidéotron, its flanker brand Fizz, and Freedom Mobile.
When Vidéotron took over Freedom in April 2023, the company’s prioritized implementing a culture-first culture, partially “because it is a result of our success in Québec,” Péladeau said.
The company’s plans to deliver bundled services also plays a role in the future of Freedom’s wireless prices.
Péladeau noted the company is “in a good position technologically” to offer Freedom customers bundled internet services, pointing to Québecor’s acquisition of VMedia, a once independent internet and television service provider, in 2022. The problem is that’s it’s being held back by the “blockage” of other network operators.
“The part of the equation that we don’t control is the kind of blockage that we will see [from] the end the network operators that we are forced to connect to,” Péladeau said.
Before Vidéotron took over Freedom from Shaw, the service provider offered home internet services. At this time, the service is not available for new activations.
Québecor reported nearly $1.3 billion in revenue from the telecommunications sector in the fourth quarter of 2023, a 35 percent increase year-over-year.
For mobile services alone, the company reported $406 million, a 103 percent increase from the year prior. Québecor partially credits this increase to Vidéotron’s acquisition of Freedom, which also helped it grow its mobile customers to 3.8 million from the 1.7 million reported in Q4 2022.
Freedom Mobile reaches 12 million Canadians at this time, including in Toronto, Calgary, and Vancouver. Péladeau said the service will arrive in new markets “over the next months.”
