Verizon posts higher subscriber loss on price hikes, competition

Reuters
04-22
UPDATE 2-Verizon posts higher subscriber loss on price hikes, competition

Updates share movement in paragraph 2, adds CEO comment in paragraphs 6-7

By Harshita Mary Varghese

April 22 (Reuters) - Verizon Communications VZ.N lost more wireless subscribers in the first quarter than Wall Street expected, as the U.S. telecom giant grappled with the fallout of recent price hikes and aggressive promotions from rivals.

Shares of the company were down about 3% in early trading.

The company warned in March off-season promotions by AT&T and T-Mobile would result in "soft" subscriber growth, fueling fears about intensifying competition in an industry vying for a limited pool of new subscribers.

"We had a pretty big price up in January, and the elasticity on that price up was higher than what we had anticipated," Sowmyanarayan Sampath, CEO of Verizon Consumer, told Reuters.

That led to a higher churn, percentage of customers exiting a service, with Verizon reporting a loss of 289,000 monthly bill-paying wireless subscribers in the first quarter, compared with expectations for 166,400 losses, according to FactSet data.

Verizon saw reductions in business wireless accounts due to the "new government and their efficiency work", CEO Hans Vestberg said in a post-earnings call.

Only a small portion of Verizon's annual $18 billion capital expenditure is exposed to tariffs, mainly on imported wireless equipment, Vestberg said.

The company introduced a three-year price guarantee in early April to lock in customers for its myPlan and myHome offerings.

"March was very strong, especially the last two weeks and in April, we were running almost double-digit growth," Sampath said.

It also reaffirmed its annual adjusted profit and free cash flow outlook, a sign it was confident in its business plans amid economic uncertainty.

In the first quarter, total revenue grew 1.5% to $33.5 billion, edging past analysts' estimates of $33.24 billion, according to data compiled by LSEG.

Wireless service revenue grew 2.7% to $20.8 billion, helped by the price hikes implemented by the company.

(Reporting by Harshita Mary Varghese in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur)

((HarshitaMary.Varghese@thomsonreuters.com;))

免责声明:投资有风险,本文并非投资建议,以上内容不应被视为任何金融产品的购买或出售要约、建议或邀请,作者或其他用户的任何相关讨论、评论或帖子也不应被视为此类内容。本文仅供一般参考,不考虑您的个人投资目标、财务状况或需求。TTM对信息的准确性和完整性不承担任何责任或保证,投资者应自行研究并在投资前寻求专业建议。

热议股票

  1. 1
     
     
     
     
  2. 2
     
     
     
     
  3. 3
     
     
     
     
  4. 4
     
     
     
     
  5. 5
     
     
     
     
  6. 6
     
     
     
     
  7. 7
     
     
     
     
  8. 8
     
     
     
     
  9. 9
     
     
     
     
  10. 10