Grant Gross
Senior Writer

Verizon posts revenue growth on mobile additions

News
Jul 22, 20112 mins

The company added 2.2 million mobile subscribers during the second quarter

Verizon Communications on Friday reported revenue of US$27.5 billion for the second quarter of 2011, up 2.8 percent from the second quarter of 2010, largely driven by mobile subscriber additions.

Net income was $3.6 billion, up from $553 million, although the second quarter of 2010 included a one-time charge of $2.3 billion for a voluntary employee reduction program. Earnings per share was $0.57 for the past quarter, compared to $0.51 in the second quarter of 2010, not including the one-time charges. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected earnings of $0.55.

The company added 2.2 million mobile customers during the quarter, and mobile data revenue grew 22.2 percent from a year ago.

Verizon also announced a change in its top management, with President and COO Lowell McAdam promoted to president and CEO. as of Aug. 1. Current Chairman and CEO Ivan Seidenberg, who had been expected to retire this year, will remain chairman, the company said.

McAdam has been COO for 10 months and was president and CEO of Verizon Wireless before that. McAdam’s promotion is “testimony to his extraordinary record of achievement,” Seidenberg said in a statement.

Verizon’s revenue grew 6.3 percent on a comparable basis from the second quarter of 2010. This was Verizon’s strongest revenue growth in 10 quarters, the company said. Last year’s results included revenue from operations that have been sold.

Mobile service revenue was $14.7 billion for the quarter, up 6.6 percent year over year. Mobile data revenue was $5.8 billion, up by $1.1 billion from a year earlier.

Verizon had 106.3 million mobile connections at the end of the quarter, including 89.7 million retail customers and 16.6 million wholesale and other connections.

Wireline revenue was $10.2 billion for the quarter, a decline of 0.3 percent.

Verizon added 189,000 Fios broadband connections and 184,000 Fios TV connections in the second quarter. The company now has 4.5 million Fios broadband and 3.8 million Fios TV customers.

Verizon’s broadband customers, including DSL, rose by 62,000 during the quarter, with gains in Fios offsetting losses in DSL customers. Verizon had 8.6 broadband customers at the end of the quarter.

Grant Gross covers technology and telecom policy in the U.S. government for The IDG News Service. Follow Grant on Twitter at GrantGross. Grant’s e-mail address is grant_gross@idg.com.

Grant Gross

Grant Gross, a senior writer at CIO, is a long-time IT journalist who has focused on AI, enterprise technology, and tech policy. He previously served as Washington, D.C., correspondent and later senior editor at IDG News Service. Earlier in his career, he was managing editor at Linux.com and news editor at tech careers site Techies.com. As a tech policy expert, he has appeared on C-SPAN and the giant NTN24 Spanish-language cable news network. In the distant past, he worked as a reporter and editor at newspapers in Minnesota and the Dakotas. A finalist for Best Range of Work by a Single Author for both the Eddie Awards and the Neal Awards, Grant was recently recognized with an ASBPE Regional Silver award for his article “Agentic AI: Decisive, operational AI arrives in business.”

More from this author