News
U.S. telco’s fixed-line connections fall by 92,000; group revenue, earnings slide.
Verizon on Tuesday published a set of second-quarter numbers that showed the full effects of the seven-week strike by fixed-line workers earlier this year.
The U.S. telco lost 92,000 Fios fixed-line connections in the three months to 30 June, encompassing losses of 41,000 video, 13,000 Internet, and 38,000 voice connections. In the same quarter a year earlier, Verizon added 96,000 Fios connections.
In a statement, the company said it made "significant progress" in working through its backlog of Fios installations in June, and has since returned to its normal run rate of connection growth.
The strike, which lasted from mid-April until the end of May, resulted in Verizon’s wireline operating loss widening to US$463 million (€421.4 million) from $199 million a year earlier. EBITDA fell 26.5% year-on-year to $1.1 billion.
As previously disclosed, the strike also shaved $0.07 off Verizon’s overall second-quarter earnings per share. Net income fell to $0.17 per share, or $831 million, from $1.04 per share, or $4.35 billion, a year ago.
As well as the strike, Verizon said income was affected by "significant non-operational items," including pension and benefit re-measurements, early debt redemption, and tender offers.
Revenue for the three months to 30 June slipped to $30.53 billion from $32.22 billion in Q2 2015.
Meanwhile, Verizon’s mobile operation added 585,000 retail subscriptions during the quarter, as its postpaid base grew by 615,000, offsetting a decline of 30,000 prepaid subscriptions. The company ended the quarter with 113.15 million retail mobile customers, up from 109.55 million last year.
Verizon’s results were published a day after it agreed to acquire Yahoo in a deal worth $4.83 billion. It plans to merge Yahoo with AOL to bolster its position in mobile media and advertising.
"Yahoo is a complementary business to AOL, giving us market-leading content brands and a valuable portfolio of online properties and mobile applications that attract over 1 billion monthly active consumer views," said Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam, on Tuesday.
"We expect this acquisition to put us in a great position as a top global mobile media company and give us a significant source of revenue growth for the future," he said.
