AT&T reported strong wireless growth in Q4 2007 with a record net gain of 2.7 million wireless subscribers, up 13.5 percent from 2.4 million net adds in the year-earlier fourth quarter. AT&T’s reported fourth-quarter revenues totaled $30.3 billion, up from $15.9 billion in the year-earlier quarter. AT&T’s 2007 reported results reflect the Dec. 29, 2006 acquisition of BellSouth and the accompanying consolidation of wireless results.
AT&T’s reported net income for the fourth quarter totaled $3.1 billion, or $0.51 per diluted share, compared with $1.9 billion, or $0.50 per diluted share, in the year-earlier quarter.
Some highlights:
AT&T Wireless
- AT&T’s net gain of 2.7 million wireless subscribers was almost entirely driven by stronger growth in retail postpaid net adds, which totaled 1.2 million, up 36.8 percent versus results in the year-earlier quarter. In addition, AT&T’s acquisition of Dobson Communications, which was completed on Nov. 15, 2007, added 1.7 million subscribers, bringing AT&T’s wireless subscriber base at year end to 70.1 million.
- Q4 was also the industry’s best-ever quarterly gross wireless subscriber additions, which totaled 6.0 million, up 9.6 percent versus the year-earlier fourth quarter. Total average monthly subscriber churn was 1.7 percent, down 10 basis points versus the year-earlier quarter, and postpaid churn was 1.2 percent, down 30 basis points from the fourth quarter of 2006.
- AT&T’s total wireless revenues were $11.4 billion, up 16.3 percent versus the year-earlier quarter.
- At the end of Q4, subscribers to AT&T U-verse totaled 231,000, up from 126,000 three months earlier.
- AT&T’s U-verse TV weekly install rate in mid-December was approximately 12,000, above the company’s year end target of 10,000.
- AT&T’s broadband revenues grew 13.7 percent in the fourth quarter to $1.4 billion.
- Total high speed Internet connections, which include DSL, AT&T U-verse high speed Internet and satellite broadband services, increased by 396,000 in the quarter to reach 14.2 million, up 2.0 million, or 16.3 percent, over the past year.
- Recurring enterprise service revenues, which exclude revenues from CPE and from assets acquired during the past year, increased 1.8 percent, up from 0.3 percent year-over-year growth in the third quarter of 2007 and a 3.5 percent decline in the fourth quarter of 2006.
- Fourth-quarter enterprise services growth was led by a 20.9 percent increase in revenues from IP-based data services such as virtual private networking (VPN), hosting and managed Internet services.
- Total enterprise revenues declined 1.9 percent year over year, reflecting a decreased emphasis on CPE sales following the fourth quarter of 2006.
Wireline
Enterprise
For the full year 2007, cost savings from BellSouth and AT&T Corp. merger integration initiatives totaled approximately $4.0 billion, approximately 75 percent expense and 25 percent capital.
Full-year 2007 capital expenditures totaled $17.7 billion.
Free cash flow totaled $16.4 billion, and free cash flow after dividends totaled $7.6 billion, significantly above AT&T’s original outlook of $5 billion to $6 billion. (Free cash flow is cash from operations minus capital expenditures; free cash flow after dividends also subtracts dividends paid.)http://www.att.com
