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Cable TV giant Shaw Communications made its first foray into wireless in 2016, when it bought Wind Mobile for $1.6 billion. Rebranded as Freedom Mobile, the service had 1.6 million customers at the end of fiscal 2019 and delivered a record $1 billion in wireless revenue that year.
However, although rapidly growing, Shaw’s wireless unit remains small compared to its main internet and cable divisions. McAleese said while Shaw’s internet service has about 50 per cent of the market share in Western Canada, it only has about six per cent of the wireless mobility market.
“That’s one of the asymmetry things that really brings this opportunity to light,” he said. “We’ve known there’s been room for a second brand within the Shaw portfolio, so Freedom will continue to operate alongside it. But it has its own feel and its own segmentation.”
Shaw Mobile will be available at a discount to Shaw Internet customers, who can add up to six wireless lines of unlimited nationwide talk and text for $0 a month. Shaw Mobile customers can also make use of Shaw’s thousands of WiFi hotspots across Western Canada powered by Shaw’s Fibre+ network. When customers aren’t on WiFi, they will be able to pay only for the data they need and connect to Shaw’s LTE network or to any of Shaw’s roaming partners nationwide.
While the creation of Shaw Mobile doesn’t move the Shaw brand into any new markets, it will make the brand more prominent in markets it is already in, said Carmi Levy, director at Info-Tech Research Group, a tech research and advisory company based in London, Ont.
