Verizon Communications, the largest US telecommunications company, has posted record wireless subscriber and high speed Internet customer growth, boosting revenue by 5.8% in the 4th quarter.
Earnings fell from a year ago, when it posted a big gain on asset sales, but revenue jumped to $19.3 billion.
Verizon Wireless, added 2 million net new wireless subscribers in the quarter, which analysts said was a record breaking quarter for the wireless industry. It ended the year with 51.3 million wireless customers in the US. Wireless revenue rose 18.3% to $8.7 billion in the quarter.
Verizon also added 613,000 net new high speed Internet customers in the 4th quarter, setting a record in the telecommunications and cable industry, ending the year with 5.1M customers.
It looks like the huge investment that both Verizon and AT&T are making in next generation high speed networks may even pay off. And they will need it to boost their share prices. It also proves the potential growth engine of the triple play; digitial TV, Internet access and telephony (ideally fixed and wirless).
Interesting that Vodafone (Verizon's minority partner in Verizon Wireless) just reported more disapointing results. Maybe the strength of wirless only is weakening.
2006 could be a strong year for Verizon. And there are still many more wireless and fixed broadband Internet connections for them to go after.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment