Verizon Wireless’s “Share Everything” shared mobile data plans were a...
Verizon Wireless’s “Share Everything” shared mobile data plans were a major boon in Q3 for one of its co-owners, Verizon Communications. Verizon owns 55 percent of Verizon Wireless, while Vodafone owns 45 percent. The plans apparently helped propel Verizon’s $1.59…
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billion in earnings for the quarter, up 14.3 percent year-over-year from $1.38 billion in 2011, the company said Thursday. Verizon Wireless added a net 1.8 million devices in Q3 -- including 1.5 million on contract-based plans -- well above an analyst consensus of about 900,000. “This margin is especially impressive given that gross adds were as high as they have been in last 4 yrs.,” Wells Fargo analyst Jennifer Fritzsche said in a report to investors. About 13 percent of Verizon’s customers on contract-based plans are using Share Everything, which the company said was evidence the plans were becoming popular. The plans have also raised customers’ monthly bills to an average of $145.42 per month, up 6.5 percent year-over-year from 2011, Verizon said. Verizon Wireless’s gains were also helped by the iPhone 5 -- the carrier had activated 650,000 of them, Verizon Chief Financial Officer Fran Shammo told investors Thursday during a conference call. The carrier activated 3.1 million iPhones of all kinds during Q3, according to Verizon. Verizon’s wireline business remained soft during Q3, with total wireline revenue of $9.9 billion, down 2.3 percent from 2011. Shammo said there was no new news to report on Verizon’s anticipated 700 MHz spectrum auction, although he noted it would not be a “fire sale” and that the company may yet decide to use the spectrum internally. The company’s wireline revenue margins will likely be down for the second half of the year compared to the first half, mostly because of weaker enterprise demand and the length of time it took to complete union deals, Shammo told investors. Verizon reported its first decline in total broadband customers in four years, due in part to its decision to stop marketing DSL connections to customers not using the company for phone service. Verizon said it added a net 135,000 subscriptions to its faster FiOS Internet service and a net 119,000 to its FiOS Video service. Verizon expects to see its FiOS Internet net adds grow to between 150,000 and 170,000 in Q4, Shammo told investors.