14 DAY TRIAL // Recently, mobile phone carrier AT&T has announced its financial results for the fourth quarter of the last year, and posted 2.8 million increase in total wireless subscribers, which brought the number of subscribers in service to 95.5 million. For the entire year 2010, AT&T added 8.9 million subscribers, the company’s best-ever annual total. The wireless carrier announced a 9.9 percent growth in wireless revenues, and unveiled that its wireless service revenues went up by 9.6 percent.
AT&T also unveiled that its consolidated revenues in the fourth quarter were of $31.4 billion, which marked an increase of $653 million, or 2.1 percent, when compared to the fourth quarter of 2009.
Wireless data revenues went up as well when compared to the same quarter of the previous year, by $1.1 billion, or 27.4 percent, the wireless operator announced.
The wireless churn was the best-ever for a fourth-quarter at 1.32 percent. The postpaid churn was of 1.15 percent, which is in line with the previous best-ever fourth-quarter level.
The postpaid subscriber ARPU (average monthly revenues per subscriber) went up as well, reaching $62.88, and marking a 2.2 percent increase.
Other highlights from the carrier's announcement would include:
- $0.18 diluted EPS, $0.55 excluding significant items; compared to $0.46 diluted EPS and $0.50 per diluted share when excluding significant items in the year-earlier period - Continued expansion in new wireless growth areas; connected devices up a record 1.5 million; iPad- and Android-based tablets up 442,000 - Second consecutive quarter of year-over-year growth in wireline consumer revenues, driven by AT&T U-verse services - 28.5 percent growth in wireline consumer IP data revenues, driven by AT&T U-verse expansion - 210,000 net gain in wireline broadband connections
At the same time, the wireless carrier announced a number of 4.1 million iPhone activations, which count to the 7.4 million postpaid integrated devices it sold in the time frame (Integrated devices sport QWERTY or virtual keyboards and voice functionality, and are drivers of wireless data usage).
For the ongoing year, the carrier expects for its revenues to grow further. However, AT&T also notes that it would greatly focus on the broadband expansion, and on the building of its LTE network.
“2011 is the year when we’ll take mobile broadband to the next level,” Randall Stephenson, AT&T chairman and chief executive officer, said.
“We’re seeing 4G speeds today in areas of key markets, we’ve accelerated our LTE deployment plans, and we expect to add 20 4G devices to our lineup this year. AT&T has led the mobile broadband revolution, and we are well positioned to drive the industry’s next waves of innovation and growth.”