Canada’s Rogers Communications added almost 200,000 new mobile customers in fourth-quarter 2008 but a weak performance by the company’s cable division has worried investors, reports Reuters. According to new subscriber figures released by the company this week, Rogers Wireless – its mobile division – added 199,000 net mobile subscribers in the traditionally strong fourth-quarter, up from 183,000 a year earlier. Some 158,000 of these new customers were postpaid subscribers, in line with figures from a year earlier. Rogers said it had sold around 130,000 Apple iPhones in the quarter, around 40 percent of which were accounted for by new subscribers. However, Jonathan Allen, an analyst at RBC Dominion Securities, told Reuters this was a “sharp drop” from the 255,000 iPhones sold in the previous quarter.

“Our wireless subscriber results reflect our success in driving greater penetration of more advanced wireless data devices and services,” Rogers chairman and acting chief executive Alan Horn said in a statement. Subscriber numbers at the company’s other divisions were less positive. According to Reuters, Rogers added just 4,000 basic cable subscribers in the fourth quarter, down from 20,000 in the year-earlier period, and gained 61,000 digital cable subscribers, flat from a year earlier. It also added 19,000 high-speed Internet customers, down from 46,000 a year earlier, and 40,000 residential cable phone customers, down from 65,000 a year earlier.