Grant Gross
Senior Writer

AT&T: Mobile and broadband strong in Q4

news
Jan 24, 20083 mins

Most of AT&T's 2.7 million new mobile subscribers came through its exclusive contract to provide service for Apple's iPhone

AT&T’s revenue was up 2.9 percent in the fourth quarter of 2007, largely driven by increases in mobile phone and broadband customers, the company said Thursday.

AT&T’s pro forma revenue was $30.4 billion for the quarter, up 2.9 percent from a year earlier, when comparing combined revenue from AT&T, BellSouth and the former Cingular Wireless. AT&T acquired BellSouth and Cingular on Dec. 29, 2006.

A net gain of 2.7 million mobile subscribers helped drive up the year-over-year pro forma numbers, AT&T said in a news release. Most of those subscribers came to AT&T through its exclusive contract to provide service for Apple’s iPhone; Apple said Tuesday it sold 2.3 million iPhones during the quarter.

AT&T’s official reported revenue for the fourth quarter, which ended Dec. 31, was $30.3 billion, up from stand-alone revenue of $15.9 billion in the fourth quarter of 2006. Those numbers were up slightly from the third quarter of 2007. Some merger-related costs account for the difference in revenue figures.

AT&T reported a net income of $3.1 billion for the fourth quarter of 2007, up from $1.9 billion, mostly due to its acquisition of BellSouth and Cingular.

By comparison, AT&T also had net income of $3.1 billion for the third quarter of 2007, with both quarters’ numbers including income from BellSouth and Cingular, which was co-owned by AT&T and BellSouth.

The company’s reported earnings per share were $0.51, up from $0.50 in the fourth quarter of 2006. Excluding one-time charges, earnings per share was $0.71, matching consensus earnings expectations by analysts polled by Thomson Financial. However, AT&T missed on the revenue side: Analysts had expected it to post $30.55 billion.

AT&T had an “excellent” fourth quarter, Randall Stephenson, AT&T’s chairman, president and CEO, said in the statement. AT&T’s mobile customer increase was the largest quarterly gain ever by a U.S. provider, he said. The company had 70.1 million mobile customers at the end of the year.

Stephenson also pointed to growth in AT&T’s enterprise and broadband businesses. “These growth trends, combined with the significant opportunities we have for continuous cost improvements, reinforce the positive outlook we have for our business,” Stephenson said. “AT&T has a terrific set of assets and an impressive record in terms of executing and delivering on targets, and I am very confident in our ability to drive strong results in 2008.”

AT&T’s mobile revenues were $11.4 billion, up 16.3 percent from the fourth quarter of 2006. Mobile data revenue was up 57.5 percent.

In AT&T’s wireline business, the company had 231,000 subscribers to its U-verse IP-based video service at year’s end, up from 126,000 at the end of the third quarter.

AT&T’s broadband revenues grew 13.7 percent in the fourth quarter to $1.4 billion. Total high-speed Internet connections, which include DSL, AT&T U-verse high-speed Internet, and satellite broadband services, increased by 396,000 in the quarter to reach 14.2 million, up by 2 million from the end of 2006.

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.”

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