Verizon's 4Q Net Up 3.9% Amid Wireless Strength
Verizon Communications's fourth-quarter net income rose 3.9% amid strong growth in its wireless segment. The second-largest U.S. telephone company behind AT&T reported net income of $1.07 billion, or 37 cents a share, compared with $1.03 billion, or 35 cents a share, a year earlier.
Excluding items, including 16 cents a share in restructuring charges and a divestiture gain of 27 cents a share, earnings from continuing operations rose to 62 cents a share from 52 cents a share.
Revenue increased 5.5% to $23.84 billion.
The means estimates of analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial were for earnings of 62 cents a share on revenue of $23.96 billion.
"In the fourth quarter, the momentum of revenue growth and margin expansion continued to drive double-digit earnings growth, and we once again reported strong growth in sales of all our strategic products," said Chairman and Chief Executive Ivan Seidenberg.
Verizon Wireless, a joint venture with Vodafone Group, saw revenue increase 13% to $11.44 billion. Total churn - or customer cancellation rate - rose to 1.2% from 1.14% a year earlier.
Growth in net new customers fell 13% to 2 million for a total subscribership of 65.7 million. AT&T has 70.1 million wireless customers.
Revenue at Verizon's wireline segment fell 1.4% to $12.54 billion. The number of primary residential landlines decreased 116% to 24.8 million, with Verizon's total base of phone lines shrinking 8.1% to 41.4 million.
Broadband connections stood at 8.2 million as of Dec. 31, up 18% from a year earlier, helped by the FiOS fiber network. Sales of wireless and Internet services have helped phone companies like Verizon and AT&T ease the impact of declining sales of fixed lines.
Verizon added 226,000 FiOS TV subscribers, taking the total to 943,000 at year-end. Subscribership has now topped 1 million, the company said. Verizon is using FiOS as its weapon to fight back cable-television operators, which also offer the all-in-one packages of video, phone and Internet services.
Looking ahead, Seidenberg said, "We see significant opportunities to grow revenues and expand our leadership in wireless and broadband markets, while reducing operating expenses."
Shares closed at $37.76 Friday. There was no pre-market activity.
-John Flowers; Dow Jones Newswires; 201-938-5964; John.Flowers@dowjones.com
Corrected Jan. 28, 2008 09:12 ET (14:12 GMT)
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
Posted to the site on 28th January 2008
