AT&T announced that its earnings declined 7.2 percent, while its revenue was up 1.6 percent from a year ago. The announcement came as part of the company's second quarter earnings report, which it released yesterday, a day after Verizon posted strong profits in the second quarter.
The telecommunications giant posted a profit of $3.55 billion, or 68 cents a share, compared to $3.82 billion, or 71 cents a share, in the year-ago period. On an adjusted basis, the company earned 62 cents a share, missing analysts’ expectations by a penny. The revenue figure, which stood at $32.6 billion, also missed Wall Street’s consensus estimate of $33.22 billion.
The company said it added more than 1 million postpaid subscribers -- those who sign a long-term contract or pay toward the end of the month. This is the largest for the company in the last five years, bringing the total to nearly 117 million.
Out of these newly added postpaid subscribers, around 707,000 were smartphone customers, while 366,000 were tablet customers. Total wireless net additions were 634,000 amid the loss of 405,000 prepaid customers.
Speaking about the broadband and television side of the business, the company said it added 488,000 net new U-verse Internet customers and 190,000 net new U-Verse TV customers in the last quarter.
The company also announced that its proposed acquisition of DirecTV is steadily progressing. AT&T's CFO John Stephens said in a conference call that the deal had received approval from regulators in Brazil and several U.S. states.
