Rogers Communications Inc. said on Tuesday it activated over a quarter of a million iPhones for customers during a three-month stretch this summer, results that helped the company post strong third-quarter numbers.

Rogers said Tuesday its third-quarter net income rose 84 per cent to $495 million as operating revenue grew 14 per cent from a year ago to $2.98 billion.

Canada's largest cable TV and mobile phone operator reported that its July-September operating profit was up 10 per cent to $1.09 billion, while earnings per share came in at 78 cents.

A year earlier, the company's net income was $269 million, or 42 cents per share, on revenue of $2.61 billion.Rogers B 3-month TSX chart

CEO Ted Rogers said the strong results came "in the face of an increasingly challenging economic backdrop" that he said the company was financed to endure.

The company said it had activated 255,000 of Apple Inc.'s 3G iPhones in the quarter, with two-thirds of these activations for existing Rogers customers. In total, Rogers said its customer base grew by 239,000 in the quarter, with average monthly revenue per post-paid user (ARPU) up four per cent from a year ago to $78.46.

Apple's 3G iPhone, launched on July 11, "will provide considerable returns in the form of higher revenue per customer and lower churn in subsequent periods," said Rogers in a statement.

Rogers, through its Rogers and Fido brands, is the only existing national Canadian telecommunications provider with a network compatible with the Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) technology the iPhone uses, a distinction that has allowed the company to reap the benefits of the device's popularity without competition from the other main carriers.

Rogers Cable also added 29,000 internet subscribers in the quarter, bringing the total customer base to 1.6 million. Digital cable subscribers increased by 58,000 to 1.5 million. Rogers Cable also added 55,000 residential voice-over-cable telephone lines, to bring the total subscribers to 800,000.

With files from the Canadian Press