Verizon ended 2006 with 7.0 million broadband connections, up 35.7% year-over-year, with more than 1.8 million net adds (FiOS and DSL) for the year and 409,000 net new adds for Q4. The company served 207,000 FiOS TV customers by year-end, with the service available for sale to 2.4 million premises, nearly doubling the addressable market in one quarter. FiOS Internet customers accounted for 165,000 of the net broadband connection additions in the fourth quarter and totaled 687,000 at year-end.
Verizon Communications posted Q4 operating revenues of $22.6 billion, a 26.1 percent increase compared with the fourth quarter 2005. Full-year 2006 operating revenues were $88.1 billion, a 26.8 percent increase compared with 2005.
Q4 reported earnings were $1.0 billion, or 35 cents per share, compared with $1.7 billion, or 59 cents per share, in the fourth quarter 2005. Fourth-quarter 2006 earnings include non-recurring charges for the recognition of taxes related to the sale of Verizon’s Dominican Republic assets and for costs related to the spin-off of Verizon’s directories publishing business.
Some highlights for the quarter:
- Verizon Wireless added 2.3 million net customers in the fourth quarter 2006 for a total of 59.1 million customers nationwide, a 15 percent increase in total customers from the end of the fourth quarter 2005.
- Verizon Wireless reported total churn of 1.14 percent for the quarter and 1.17 percent for the year. Churn among the company’s retail post-paid customers — almost 93 percent of total customers — was even lower, at 0.89 percent for Q4 and 0.91 percent for the year.
- Verizon Wireless quarterly revenues topped $10 billion for the first time.
- New broadband and video sales have more than made up for a reduction in primary wireline voice access lines of customers. The company added 142,000 more net broadband and video customers during the fourth quarter 2006 than it lost in primary wireline voice access lines, compared with 120,000 added in the third quarter 2006. Primary residential access lines decreased by 366,000 in the fourth quarter 2006 compared with the third quarter 2006, while Verizon added 508,000 residential broadband and video customers over the same period.
- At year-end 2006, Verizon served 45.1 million total domestic wireline access lines — which also include secondary residential lines, public telephones, business lines and wholesale voice connections. This is a 7.6 percent decrease compared with year-end 2005.
- Verizon Business operating revenues rose to $5.3 billion in the fourth quarter 2006. This is a 2.3 percent increase compared with the third quarter 2006, and a 2.7 percent increase compared with the fourth quarter 2005 (pro- forma).
- CAPEX totaled $17.1 billion in 2006, including $1.6 billion due to the inclusion of former MCI, compared with $15.0 billion in 2005. Verizon is targeting capital expenditures of from $17.5 billion to $17.9 billion in 2007. As part of that total, Wireline capital expenditures are expected in the range of $10.7 billion to $10.9 billion, and Wireless capital expenditures are expected in the range of $6.6 billion to $6.8 billion.
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