Verizon Nears 35 Million Subscribers

The USA's Verizon Wireless has reported that its subscriber base grew by 14.2% during the second quarter of this year, reaching a total of 34.6 million subscribers. The retail customer base grew 15% year over year, and represented more than 96% of the base, or 33.4 million of the company's 34.6 million total customers, at the end of the quarter. Retail net customer additions in the quarter -- up more than 10% over the second quarter 2002 -- were 1.2 million of the company's approximately 1.3 million net additions.

Retail churn, as well as total churn for both retail and reseller, was 1.7%. The retail post-pay segment -- which is more than 90% of the company's base -- had a churn rate of 1.4% for the second quarter.

Verizon Wireless says that the average monthly service revenue per subscriber was more than US$49, up 1.2% over the prior-year quarter and up more than US$2 over the first quarter 2003. Cash expense per subscriber increased only 1.2% over the prior-year quarter, even with the record volume of new subscribers. The percentage of operating income before depreciation and amortization, divided by service revenues, remained strong at 38.7%.

Virtually all of the company's national network, is now equipped with a CDMA 1XRTT service. The network now is poised for the company's launch of EVDO, which will enable the next generation of higher data speeds, in two cities this autumn.

Text messaging grew to more than 300 million billed text messages a month, and 1.4 billion in the first half of this year. Usage on the company's Express Network has significantly increased over the preceding quarter. And the company's Get It Now BREW-based downloadable ringtones, games and exclusive content grew to 2.5 million revenue-generating downloads a month and 170 unique applications."

Posted to the site on 30th July 2003