Today’s the day! Verizon earnings have been released, and the company met analyst expectations and beat revenue estimates for its second quarter. This is significant news, as it has helped Verizon’s (NYSE:$VZ) stock rebound from a discouraging year.
Let’s dive into the numbers:
Verizon’s earnings per share were up marginally at 96 cents compared to 94 cents in the 2016 quarter. Revenue increased quietly to $30.55 billion from $30.53 billion. In the report, analysts had expected to see profit per share of 96 cents and revenue of $29.91 billion.
On Thursday, shares of the New York City-based company were up almost 6%, cutting its year-to-date drop to 12%. Earlier this month, Verizon’s stock reached a 52-week intraday low of $42.80.
This Q2 earnings report is noteworthy, as it represents the first full quarter that it offered unlimited data plans. The company started to sell such plans back in February, during the first quarter.
“The market’s figuring out that the competitive wave that T-Mobile and Sprint had launched against Verizon and AT&T has crested and it’s over,” said Charlie Smith of Fort Pitt Capital Group.
In addition, Verizon reported that its unlimited data plans had increased LTE network usage year over year. Service revenue for the company fell 6.7% to $15.6 billion. Matt Ellis, the CFO of Verizon, said that some of that decrease was due to overage fee losses as more customers have started to upgrade their unlimited plans. He also said that he forecasts that the decline will shrink to inside 4% by the end of Q4.
Verizon has added 633,000 wireless customers, which is up from 585,000.
In regards to retail postpaid churn rates, otherwise known as the percentage of subscribers who cancel their service, was 0.94%. The total was lower than what Wall Street had expected (1.08%).
Total wireless revenue fell 1.9% to $21.3 billion from the 2016 quarter. And, after Verizon earnings were released, the company’s shares increased more than 3% in pre-market trading.
“Verizon reignited its growth engine in the quarter, both adding and retaining wireless customers while scaling our media business and continuing to invest in our superior networks,” CEO Lowell McAdam said.
Last but not least, Verizon said i the report that it expects its full-year revenue to be ”fairly consistent” with 2016 and its adjusted earnings per share to be similar to revenue trends. Meanwhile, Wall Street forecasts full-year earnings per share of $3.75 and revenue of $122.47 billion.
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