AT&T Inc. Barely Misses Earnings Estimates

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AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) released the earnings results from its most recently completed quarter after closing bell, posting earnings per share of 63 cents, excluding items, on $33 billion in revenue, a 2.5% increase year over year. Analysts had been expecting the mobile carrier to post earnings of 64 cents per share on $33.3 billion in revenue for the third quarter.

Diluted earnings per share were 58 cents, compared to 72 cents last year. In the same quarter last year, AT&T reported adjusted earnings of 66 cents per share on $32.16 billion in revenue.

AT&T’s wireless segment

AT&T reported 785,000 postpaid net wireless adds during the quarter, which is more than double the amount it had in the same quarter last year. So far this year, the mobile carrier has racked up over 2.4 million postpaid net adds. The company reported a record low postpaid churn rate of .99%.

Revenues from AT&T’s wireless division rose 4.9%, while data billings increased by almost 24% year over year. The segment’s operating income margin was 24.6%, while its adjusted EBITDA service margin was 43.1%.

The company added almost 1.2 million new postpaid smartphones. Smartphones made up 91% of the carrier’s postpaid phone sales. AT&T reported almost 47 million AT&T Mobile Share connections, which made up approximately 62% of its postpaid subscribers. More than half of those accounts have data plans of at least 10 gigabytes.

AT&T also set a new record for third quarter postpaid smartphone gross adds and upgrades, which was 6.8 million. The carrier reported that 3.4 million of all its smartphone gross adds and upgrades were on AT&T Next plans without device subsidies.

AT&T’s wireline segment

The company reported a 3% growth rate in wireline revenue. Total U-verse revenues rose 23.8% bringing the service to a $15 billion annualized revenue stream. AT&T had 601,000 U-verse high speed internet subscriber net adds in the quarter. Of those adds, 44,000 of them were business customers. The company now has over 12 million total U-Verse high speed internet subscribers.

AT&T reported adding 216,000 U-verse TV subscribers, bringing the total up over 6 million. The company’s strategic business services revenue increased by 14.3%, hitting a nearly $10 billion annualized revenue stream.

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