US telecoms giant Verizon Communications has reported total operating revenues of USD30.532 billion for the three months ended 30 June 2016, representing a decrease of 5.3% year-on-year. Mobile unit Verizon Wireless generated the bulk of the company’s second-quarter sales, with a top-line figure of USD21.704 billion, down 4.0% on an annualised basis. Consolidated operating income for Q2 was USD4.554 billion, down from USD7.821 billion in the year-ago period, while net income dropped heavily from USD4.353 billion to USD831 million. Verizon’s earnings were negatively impacted by the strike by 40,000 wireline employees that started in April this year and lasted seven weeks, it said.
In operational terms, Verizon Wireless saw its retail subscriber base increase from 109.548 million to 113.154 million in the period under review, including 107.780 million post-paid customers. At end-June, Verizon boasted post-paid smartphone penetration of 85.5%, compared to 81.2% at 30 June 2015. In addition, in the April-June period Verizon claimed that the total number of LTE-suitable devices connected to its network reached 88.9 million, compared to 76.0 million in 2Q15. 93% of all mobile data traffic is now carried over its 4G network, the company observed.
In terms of fixed line metrics, Verizon Communications claimed a total of 5.495 million fibre-optic ‘FiOS Internet’ subscribers and 4.637 million ‘FiOS Video’ IPTV connections at the end of the period under review. The telco’s overall broadband user base stood at 7.014 million at 30 June, with fixed voice accesses standing at 14.476 million at the same date. Fixed line numbers dropped across the board, following the April 2016 completion of the divestment of Verizon Communications’ wireline operations in California, Texas and Florida to Frontier Communications. The telco paid USD10.54 billion for approximately 3.3 million voice connections, 2.1 million broadband connections, and 1.2 million IPTV subscribers, as well as the related incumbent local exchange carrier (ILEC) businesses.