Neil Hughes
As competition between U.S. wireless carriers heats up, Verizon Wireless on Tuesday announced the addition of nearly 2 million new subscribers in the fourth quarter of 2013.
The late-year additions account for nearly half of the 4.1 million net new subscribers Verizon says they added in 2013. Nearly all of the company's 102.8 million customers are postpaid, with just 5 million subscribers opting for prepaid services.
Verizon appears especially proud of the completion of its 4G LTE rollout, with the company repeatedly referring to the milestone during Tuesday's earnings announcement conference call. More than 300 million Americans now have access to Verizon-provided 4G LTE services in over 500 markets, accounting for 99 percent of Verizon's existing 3G coverage area.
High-speed LTE services are especially important in light of the dramatic market share gains smartphones have made in recent years — Â handsets like Apple's iPhone now represent seven out of every ten active lines on Verizon's wireless network.
Revenue increased 5.7 percent year-over-year to $21.1 billion, with revenue from services jumping to $17.7 billion. Average revenue per account, or ARPA, grew 7.1 percent year-over-year to $157.21.
Despite the robust growth, Verizon is facing increased pressure from rivals.
T-Mobile, which has commanded attention in recent weeks for a spate of promotional changes aimed at siphoning customers away from larger carriers, added 4.4 million customers in 2013 and is. Sprint, which will report its own fourth-quarter results on Feb. 11, is also expected to be more aggressive after its acquisition by Japanese carrier SoftBank.
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25 Comments
70% are smartphones with half of those being iPhones, eh?
Yeah, I’m sure Android is selling.
That’s fine. Now how about telling us profit per account.
[quote name="Tallest Skil" url="/t/161668/verizon-wireless-adds-1-7m-subscribers-in-q4-70-now-have-smartphones#post_2460422"]70% are smartphones with half of those being iPhones, eh? Yeah, I’m sure Android is selling. [/quote] Odd, but don't they normally release iPhone sales data as well?
Odd, but don't they normally release iPhone sales data as well?
Maybe they don't want to destroy their non-Apple handset-maker relationships.
[quote name="anantksundaram" url="/t/161668/verizon-wireless-adds-1-7m-subscribers-in-q4-70-now-have-smartphones#post_2460447"]Maybe they don't want to destroy their non-Apple handset-maker relationships. [/quote] That's possible. I still have a hard time believing how many subscribers they claim to have, at over 100 millions subs means that 1 in 3 people in this country are a VZW customer.
They sold 8.8 millions smartphones but didnt disclose the iphones numbers. Last year they sold 9.8 millions smartphones, so they have a YoY decline. Last year iphones number was 6.2 millions iphones.
imo Apple didnt sold 6.2 millions iphones out of 8.8 millions smartphones, so the iphone number is probably down YoY. That being said, I think VZ lost sales to sprint and other players, so it blurrs the results. The tablet activation number was 625 k, imo a lot of those are ipads.
Since I have to count this as a bad results for Apple, I must go into earning with limited stock/option exposures. But, because of market share improments and the number of countries at launch this fall, I still think Apple could blowout.