AT&T Posts Solid Q2

It seems that the loss of iPhone exclusivity hasn’t left AT&T (NYSE:T, news, filings) entirely helpless – if their Q2 financials are representative anyway.  Revenues of $31.5B were just slightly above expectations, while earnings per share of $0.60 came in right on the button compared with analyst forecasts.  Wireless revenues rose to $15.6B, up 9.5% over the same quarter last year.  The total number of wireless customers rose again to 98.6M, with total smartphone activations of 5.6M.  Wireless data revenues rose 23.4% over the same quarter last year.

On the wireline side, overall revenues were stable, with growth on the consumer side and ‘stabilizing’ (meaning slightly declining) revenues on the business side.  U-verse TV added another 202K customers, while U-verse Broadband gained another 439K helping to offset the loss of older DSL subscribers.  Total consumer broadband connections fell slightly sequentially due to seasonality.  IP data is now 49.2% of the company’s consumer business.

Wireline business revenues fell 0.3% to $9.3B sequentially, with the usual story of weakness in voice and legacy data partly offset by growth in IP data.  When they get to pick out the growing stuff, ‘strategic business services’ grew at a 19.4% clip over the same period last year.  Those services now account for a run-rate of $5.5B in annual revenue.

All in all, nothing shocking today – meaning the economy may not be kicking ass but at least it isn’t imploding.  But AT&T is so big, it sometimes pays to ask just what *wasn’t* in their release.  The words ‘fiber’, ‘data center’, and ‘colo’, for instance, do not occur anywhere, and ‘cloud’ appeared only in ancillary forms.

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Categories: Financials · ILECs, PTTs · Wireless