“Verizon has delivered another quarter of strong financial and operational results, based on consistent network reliability and superior value that continues to attract new customers,” said Chairman and CEO Lowell McAdam. “In the second quarter, we again balanced quality Verizon Wireless connections growth with low churn and profitability, and we announced and completed our acquisition of AOL. We’re now poised to offer customers exciting new over-the-top (OTT) mobile video services, and we look forward to a very positive second half of 2015.”
Wireless Highlights
- Total revenues were $22.6 billion in second-quarter 2015, up 5.3 percent year over year. Service revenues totaled $17.7 billion, down 2.2 percent year over year, while equipment revenues increased to $3.9 billion in second-quarter 2015 from $2.4 billion in second-quarter 2014 as more customers chose to buy new devices with installment pricing.
- In second-quarter 2015, wireless operating income margin was 34.0 percent, up from 32.5 percent in second-quarter 2014. Segment EBITDA margin on service revenues was 56.1 percent, compared with 50.3 percent in second-quarter 2014. Segment EBITDA margin on total revenues was 43.9 percent, compared with 42.3 percent in second-quarter 2014.
- Verizon Wireless had 1.1 million retail postpaid net additions in second-quarter 2015, nearly twice the net additions in first-quarter 2015. At the end of second-quarter 2015, the company had 109.5 million retail connections, a 4.7 percent year-over-year increase, and 103.7 million retail postpaid connections, a 5.2 percent year-over-year increase. These totals do not include wholesale or IoT connections.
- Verizon added 842,000 4G smartphones to its postpaid customer base in second-quarter 2015. Postpaid phone net adds totaled 321,000 as net smartphone adds of 588,000 were partially offset by a net decline of 266,000 basic phones. Tablet net adds totaled 852,000 in the quarter, and net prepaid devices declined by 126,000.
- 4G devices now constitute approximately 73 percent of the retail postpaid connections base, with the LTE network handling about 87 percent of total wireless data traffic in second-quarter 2015. Overall traffic on LTE has essentially doubled in the past year.
- About 7.2 percent of Verizon’s retail postpaid base upgraded to a new device in second-quarter 2015. In the past year, the number of 4G smartphones in Verizon’s customer base has increased by 17.8 million, to 61.6 million, an increase of about 40 percent. The company continues to see opportunities to upgrade its base of about 16 million basic phone and 9 million 3G smartphone customers to 4G devices.
- At 0.90 percent in second-quarter 2015, retail postpaid churn improved both sequentially and year over year. Low churn is an indicator of high customer loyalty, and this was Verizon’s lowest churn rate in three years.
- Verizon’s network densification plans are on schedule. These plans include deployment of small cells, DAS (distributed antenna system) nodes and in-building solutions.
Wireline Highlights
- In second-quarter 2015, consumer revenues were $4.0 billion, an increase of 4.5 percent compared with second-quarter 2014. Consumer revenues have now grown by at least 4 percent for 12 consecutive quarters, with FiOS revenues representing 79 percent of the total.
- Total FiOS revenues grew 10.0 percent, to $3.4 billion, comparing second-quarter 2015 with second-quarter 2014.
- Wireline operating income margin was 5.3 percent in second-quarter 2015, up from 2.6 percent in second-quarter 2014. Segment EBITDA margin (non-GAAP) was 23.5 percent in second-quarter 2015, compared with 23.4 percent in second-quarter 2014.
- In second-quarter 2015, Verizon added 72,000 net new FiOS Internet connections and 26,000 net new FiOS Video connections. Verizon had totals of 6.8 million FiOS Internet and 5.8 million FiOS Video connections at the end of the second quarter, representing year-over-year increases of 8.1 percent and 6.4 percent, respectively.
- FiOS Internet penetration (subscribers as a percentage of potential subscribers) was 41.4 percent at the end of second-quarter 2015, compared with 40.1 percent at the end of second-quarter 2014. In the same periods, FiOS Video penetration was 35.7 percent, compared with 35.3 percent.
- Verizon saw higher-than-anticipated demand for its new Custom TV packages, with more than one-third of FiOS Video gross customer additions opting for Custom TV and migration demand from existing customers. While Custom TV adoption has an initial negative impact on revenue growth, it is expected to improve profitability.
- By the end of second-quarter 2015, 64 percent of consumer FiOS Internet customers subscribed to FiOS Quantum, which provides speeds ranging from 50 to 500 megabits per second. The highest rate of growth is in the 75-megabit-per-second tier, to which 23 percent of FiOS customers subscribe.
- In second-quarter 2015, Verizon migrated 51,000 customers who had been using copper connections, toward a full-year goal of 200,000.
- Wireline results include operations being sold to Frontier Communications Corp. in the non-contiguous states of California, Florida and Texas.