Rogers Communications Inc. profit fell 24 per cent in the third quarter as the company spent more to keep subscribers in the midst of a highly competitive wireless market.

Net income for the Toronto-based wireless, cable and media company (TSX: RCI.B) weakened to $370 million or 64 cents per share in the three month period. That’s down from $485 million, or 79 cents per share, at the same time a year earlier.

On an adjusted basis, net income was down six per cent to $476 million, or 83 cents per share, beating analysts expectations of 79 cents per share for the third quarter, according to Thomson Reuters.

Revenue increased three per cent to $3.1 billion, which was relatively in-line with analyst expectations of $3.19 billion.

In early trading, Rogers’ shares slipped five per cent, or $2.14, to $39.17 on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

The company says heightened competition in the overall market resulted in fewer net subscriber additions to its wireless services, compared with last year.

Chief executive Nadir Mohamed said new wireless players have “for the most part, fairly limited impact.”

Wind Mobile, Public Mobile, Mobilicity and Quebecor’s (TSX: QBR.B) have all launched in recent months.

But the wireless division did continue to grow, comprising $1.8 billion of the quarterly revenue.

“The third quarter 2010 results demonstrate continued steady growth in new subscribers, revenues and free cash flow, and the return of significant amounts of cash to our shareholders through dividends and share buybacks,” Mohamed said in a conference call.

“To reinforce the future growth of our business, we continued to make significant investments — not just in our leading networks and customer retention initiatives, but on opportunistic acquisitions consistent with our strategic priorities.”

Rob Bruce, president of the communications division, said Rogers also had a major internal reorganization during the year to reduce costs.

“I think you’re starting to see those savings come through, and those will continue to come through over time,” Bruce said.

“We’ve taken initiatives like outsourcing some of our IT support, we’re doing a lot of process reengineering, renegotiating of contracts, working hard to drive our costs down.”

That includes emphasizing customer self-services through the web and automated phone services, to take traffic away from call centres, Bruce said.

There were several “tuck in” accusations of modest size in different parts of the business, but the most significant was the $425 million purchase of Atria Networks, one of Ontario’s largest fibre optic networks, he said.

Rogers is Canada’s largest wireless provider and has the Rogers Wireless and Fido brands as well as talk-and-text discount brand Chatr, launched in the summer.

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Rogers also provides cable, Internet, phone, specialty and conventional television services and also owns radio and TV stations, publishes a stable of magazines and owns the Toronto Blue Jays.

The wireless division provided more than half of the company’s overall operating revenue, at $1.8 billion. The cable division’s revenue was $1 billion and media generated $376 million in revenue.

On a segmented basis, wireless generated $823 million in adjusted operating profit, cable contributed $379 million and media $38 million.