Vonage Reports $54 Million Q3 Loss

Voice-over-IP phone pioneer Vonage Holdings Inc announced a third-quarter loss of $54.6 million, or 33 cents a share.
Vonage Reports $54 Million Q3 Loss
The photo shows the Vonage booth at the 2008 International Consumer Electronics Show. Vonage Holdings Inc. announced a $55 million loss for Q3 2009, attributing it to a strange accounting error caused by a rise in stock prices earlier in the quarter. David Paul Morris/Getty Images
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<a><img src="https://www.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2015/09/vonage_78855259.jpg" alt="The photo shows the Vonage booth at the 2008 International Consumer Electronics Show. Vonage Holdings Inc. announced a $55 million loss for Q3 2009, attributing it to a strange accounting error caused by a rise in stock prices earlier in the quarter. (David Paul Morris/Getty Images)" title="The photo shows the Vonage booth at the 2008 International Consumer Electronics Show. Vonage Holdings Inc. announced a $55 million loss for Q3 2009, attributing it to a strange accounting error caused by a rise in stock prices earlier in the quarter. (David Paul Morris/Getty Images)" width="320" class="size-medium wp-image-1825406"/></a>
The photo shows the Vonage booth at the 2008 International Consumer Electronics Show. Vonage Holdings Inc. announced a $55 million loss for Q3 2009, attributing it to a strange accounting error caused by a rise in stock prices earlier in the quarter. (David Paul Morris/Getty Images)

NEW YORK—Voice-over-IP phone pioneer Vonage today announced a third-quarter loss of $54.6 million, or 33 cents a share, a much larger loss than at the same time in 2008, when it lost $7.8 million.

Vonage Holdings Inc. said that much of the loss came from a $63 million charge that resulted from a rise in Vonage’s stock price earlier in the quarter, a financial accounting oddity due to how its convertible bonds were structured.

The company had aggressively rolled out Vonage World to much fanfare and promotion, touting its flat-rate unlimited worldwide calling plans to 60 countries, including the United States, Canada, Mexico, and India, for $25 a month.

Vonage said that 400,000 people had signed up for its Vonage World service, but that it has also lost 50,000 subscribers during the same period. Vonage said its “churn rate,” referring to customers who join and leave the service, increased to 3.4 percent from 3.2 percent. The company cited “macroeconomic environment” conditions for this increase in turnover.

The company’s revenue remained almost steady, dipping 2 percent to $221.5 million from $225.8 million. But it said that its average revenue per customer line increased from $28.75 to $29.89, a jump of 4 percent.

Vonage Holdings is one of the pioneers in Voice-over-IP phone solutions, but has found its market share and revenue eroded in the last few years by software VoIP solutions such as Skype, which have their own commercial offerings, as well as competing products from telecommunication vendors and service providers such as Verizon.