The news that AT&T’s (T) consumer business was soft last quarter is old now. The company’s shares are up almost 3% on release of its fourth quarter numbers.
On a pro forma basis, reflecting the purcahse of BellSouth, AT&T’s fourth-quarter 2007 revenues totaled $30.4 billion, up 2.9 percent versus results for the year-earlier quarter. The firm’s reported net income for the fourth quarter totaled $3.1 billion, or $0.51 per diluted share, compared with $1.9 billion, or $0.50 per diluted share, in the year-earlier quarter. This was in-line with Wall St expectations.
AT&T’s net gain of 2.7 million wireless subscribers was the highest quarterly subscriber increase ever for any U.S. wireless provider, up 13.5 percent from 2.4 million net adds in the year-earlier fourth quarter. Wireless data revenues increased 57.5 percent versus results in the year-earlier quarter, driven by increased adoption of smart phones and 3G wireless devices. That may be good news for Apple (AAPL) and its iPhone.
At the end of the fourth quarter, subscribers to AT&T U-verse, the company’s next-generation IP-based video service, totaled 231,000, up from 126,000 three months earlier. AT&T’s U-verse TV weekly install rate in mid-December was approximately 12,000, above the company’s year end target of 10,000. In December,
Douglas A. McIntyre
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