Verizon Q3 Net Down; Carrier Plans Tiered Pricing
Verizon reported net income of $881 million in Q3, down from $1.18 billion a year earlier. The results included 25 cents per share in non-operational charges, including a noncash charge related to pension settlements. Verizon Wireless added 997,000 net new customers --compared with 1.3 million a year earlier -- bringing its total to 93.2 million.
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Verizon Wireless intends to offer a new data plan this week, John Killian, the chief financial officer, said at an investor conference Friday. It’s meant for the holiday season. Tiered pricing is a good concept, and Verizon will look at more pricing options as it rolls out its 4G services this year, Killian said. There are signs of stabilization, Killian said, but he doesn’t expect much help from the economy this year.
"We're very pleased with where we are in terms of LTE deployment,” Killian said. The network will be in good shape, he said. “We think there’s a huge opportunity to continue to grow,” he said. “We have a $20 billion annual wireless business. … It’s hard to describe that as ‘early innings,’ but we still believe it’s the early innings of the data explosion.” Verizon’s LTE network is expected to cover “virtually all of the company’s current nationwide 3G footprint,” the company said. The carrier added 584,000 postpaid subscribers and 137,000 prepaid subscribers. Reseller customers totaled 550,000. The company also added 251,000 connected devices.
The slowing wireline business, meanwhile, had a 3.6 percent year-over-year revenue decrease to $10.3 billion. But the company added 204,000 FiOS TV customers and 226,000 FiOS Internet customers. The emphasis shifted from extending the service footprint to signing up customers in the current service territory, Killian said.
Verizon’s global business arm posted revenue of $3.9 billion, down slightly from a year ago. A decline in global enterprise revenue from $4.0 billion in Q2 to $3.9 billion was blamed on currency effects. The bright spot are sales of strategic enterprise services, including security and IT solutions and strategic networking, which increased 6.9 percent year-over-year.