AT&T Q2 Earnings Tops Street

(RTTNews) - AT&T Inc. (T) Tuesday reported a second-quarter profit that increased from a year ago, reflecting increased subscriptions. Earnings for the quarter trumped Wall Street estimates.

Dallas, Texas-based telecom giant's second-quarter profit rose to $3.92 billion or $0.63 per share from $3.41 billion or $0.55 per share last year.

Excluding special items, adjusted earnings were $0.79 per share. On average, 23 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected earnings of $0.74 per share for the quarter.

AT&T's revenues for the quarter dropped 1.7 percent to $39.84 billion from $40.52 billion last year. Analyst had predicted revenues of $39.83 billion.

The company said revenues declined largely due to quarter declines in legacy wireline services and consumer mobility.

AT&T reported 2.8 million wireless net additions, with 2.3 million in U.S., driven by prepaid, postpaid and connected devices. The company said postpaid churn rate for the quarter in the U.S. was 0.79 percent. Total postpaid churn, including tablets, of 1.01 percent, which the company said was "lowest postpaid phone churn in our history.

CEO Randall Stephenson said, "In a quarter where our competitors used promotions aggressively, we added more than 500,000 branded smartphones to our base and more than 100,000 IP broadband subscribers, achieved record EBITDA wireless margins and had the lowest postpaid phone churn in our history.

"We continue to expect the Time Warner deal to close by year-end and further transform the company," Stephenson added.

AT&T lost 199,000 subscribers, but the loss was offset by gains in its DirecTV Now online streaming service. Total video subscribers was essentially flat year over year, the company said.

Looking forward to full year 2017, AT&T maintained its guidance of adjusted earnings growth in the mid-single digit range.

T closed Tuesday's trading at $36.22, down $0.01 or 0.03%, on the NYSE. The stock, however, gained $0.93 or 2.57 percent in the after-hours trading.