Verizon has announced its Q1 2016 earnings with $32.2 billion in total operating revenue coming in, of which $22 billion came from the wireless end of the business. The carrier was also able to add 640,000 postpaid net additions, which is a low-volume quarter for them. Customer retention remained solid at Verizon, with its retail postpaid churn as low as 0.96%, a huge improvement year over year.
The carrier notes some of the other wireless highlights as:
- The percentage of phone activations on installment plans grew to 68 percent in first-quarter 2016, compared with 67 percent in fourth-quarter 2015. The company expects this percentage to grow to 70 percent in second-quarter 2016. About 48 percent of postpaid phone customers are on an unsubsidized pricing plan, and service revenue declines are expected to flatten when this base exceeds 50 percent. Verizon expects the decline in service revenues to slow throughout the year and ultimately turn positive by the end of 2017.
- The composition of the 640,000 retail postpaid net adds was strong: Verizon added 452,000 4G smartphones to its postpaid base in first-quarter 2016. Due to declines in 3G and basic phones, postpaid phone net adds were a negative 8,000. Tablet net adds totaled 507,000 in the quarter.
- Verizon ended first-quarter 2016 with a total of 73.8 million smartphones. This is 85 percent of the total phone base, with 4G devices more than 81 percent of the retail postpaid connections base.
- Growth in 4G device adoption is driving increased data and video usage. Approximately 92 percent of Verizon's total data traffic is on the LTE network. Overall data traffic on LTE has increased by approximately 50 percent year over year.
Overall it seems as though it was a solid quarter for the carrier as it posted $1.06 in earnings per share, which is up from the same quarter last year.
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