Verizon in the third quarter implemented price increases on each mobile phone line on certain older phone plans.
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When
Verizon
Communications reports its third-quarter results Tuesday morning, the bigger focus may be subscriber growth, rather than profit or revenue
The New York-based wireless carrier, the largest in terms of revenue in the U.S., is expected to report $1.18 a share in earnings for the quarter that ended in September, down by almost 11% from a year earlier, based on the consensus call among analysts tracked by
FactSet.
Revenue is anticipated to decline by 2.6% from a year earlier to $33.3 billion.
Telecom companies are battling for customers, so growth in their subscriber bases is a key metric to watch. In May, CEO Hans Vestberg said that during the pandemic, when schools went remote, demand for Verizon’s wireless services grew, “especially from governments,” but that “there’s no pre- or post-Covid benefits right now. We’re now on a normal trajectory.”
The consensus call is that Verizon will report a gain of 63,600 subscribers in its wireless postpaid phone division in the third quarter after adding 8,000 in the second quarter. The company lost 127,000 subscribers in the first.
AT&T
(T) last week reported a net gain of 468,000 of mobility postpaid phone subscribers for the quarter ended in September.
Investors are also watching the latest quarter’s subscriber numbers to check for any benefit from last month’s iPhone 15 launch.
The past quarter, Verizon introduced a new unlimited plan called Unlimited Ultimate, its priciest option at $100 a month for a single line without AutoPay Discount. It also raised prices on some existing wireless plans at the end of August. Verizon’s management has generally been reluctant to surrender ground on pricing. That helps the carrier to maintain its profit margins, though it has the potential to hurt the company’s subscriber growth.
The stock has a dividend yield of 8.3%, according to Morningstar. That means investors receive $8.30 in dividends each year for every $100 invested in the company’s stock. AT&T pays 7.4%.
Write to Karishma Vanjani at [email protected].
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