SBC Communications added 446,000 DSL lines and 2.6 million long distance lines in Q1, while consumer retail access lines declined by 305,000.
Financially, SBC reported consolidated revenues for Q1 of $10.1 billion, compared with $10.1 billion in Q4 2003 and $10.4 billion Q1 2003. (SBC’s consolidated revenues do not include revenues from Cingular Wireless. Earnings were $1.9 billion, or $0.59 per diluted share. This compares with earnings of $2.5 billion, or $0.74 per share, including a $0.32 per-share gain on the sale of SBC’s stake in Cegetel in the year-earlier first quarter. Excluding these gains, earnings per share in the first quarter of 2004 were $0.37, compared with $0.42 in the first quarter of 2003. Some highlights for Q1 2004:
- DSL: with the net gain of 446,000 DSL lines in Q1, SBC now has nearly 4 million DSL lines in service. This marked SBC’s ninth consecutive quarter of sequential DSL line growth.
- Long distance: SBC now has 17 million long distance lines in service, up 125% over a year ago. The company cited robust growth in the Midwest, where it launched long distance service in late 2003. Over the past four quarters, SBC has added 9.4 million long distance lines.
- Bundles: Penetration of consumer retail lines with at least one key service — long distance, DSL, Cingular Wireless or SBC | DISH Network video — increased to 50% at the end of the quarter, up from 44% three months earlier and 23% at the end of the year-earlier first quarter.
- Data revenues: SBC’s data revenues totaled $2.6 billion in the quarter, up 6.8% versus the year-ago first quarter, reflecting growth in DSL revenues.
- Consumer lines: SBC’s consumer retail access line base declined by 305,000 in the first quarter, versus declines of 748,000 in the year-ago first quarter and 424,000 in the fourth quarter of 2003. One factor in access line declines is consumer disconnects of additional lines when purchasing broadband services such as DSL. Combining DSL and access lines, SBC’s total consumer lines increased by 205,000 during the first quarter.
- Cingular Wireless: Cingular Wireless posted a net subscriber gain of 554,000 in the first quarter — 2.5 million over the last four quarters — to reach 24.6 million in service. Gross customer additions in the quarter totaled 2.5 million, marking Cingular’s third consecutive quarter with gross adds of 2.5 million or more. Cingular revenues totaled $3.9 billion in the quarter, up 8.4% from $3.6 billion in the year-earlier first quarter. Operating expenses totaled $3.4 billion, versus $2.9 billion in the first quarter of 2003, reflecting strong gross customer additions and accelerated GSM/GPRS network conversion.
- CAPEX: $936 million
- Debt: $10.5 billion (net of cash), down from $12.8 billion at the end of Q4 2003
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