For the first time in the past two years, AT&T actually has a profit for its fourth quarter.
The carrier today announced a healthy profit of $6.9 billion on $33.2 billion in revenues — a far cry from the huge $3.9 billion loss it saw last year and the $6.7 billion loss from two years ago (when the T-Mobile acquisition fell through). Analysts expected revenues of around $33.1 billion, according to Reuters.
But even with the good news, AT&T’s investors likely aren’t too pleased by Verizon’s even better quarterly earnings: a $7.9 billion profit. Verizon’s growth came from 1.7 million new customers during the quarter, while AT&T says it saw 1.2 million new contracted smartphones. That’s a new figure for AT&T, as it includes both new people and existing customers who upgraded to a smartphone.
Overall, smartphones accounted for 93 percent of phone sales during the quarter. AT&T says more than half of its customers are using a LTE 4G-capable device. The company’s LTE network now covers more than 280 million people across the U.S., and AT&T expects that network to be “substantially complete” by the summer.
June 5th: The AI Audit in NYC
Join us next week in NYC to engage with top executive leaders, delving into strategies for auditing AI models to ensure fairness, optimal performance, and ethical compliance across diverse organizations. Secure your attendance for this exclusive invite-only event.
Targeting T-Mobile’s recent claims that it now has the fastest data network in the country, AT&T also pointed to a recent report by RootMetrics that lists its network as the top performer in 93 out of 125 major cities. T-Mobile’s data is based on Ookla’s Speedtest.net data, which is culled from actual user tests. AT&T also claims its network drops less than 1 percent of calls, the lowest figure from any major carrier.
Looking at all of 2013, AT&T saw $128.8 billion in revenues and $18.2 billion in profit. The company expects to grow its revenue by up to 3 percent in 2014.
