AT&T Wins Big in Q2

AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) reported its second quarter financial results after markets closed Tuesday. The telecom giant said that it had $0.79 in earnings per share (EPS) and $39.8 billion in revenue, compared with consensus estimates from Thomson Reuters that called for $0.74 in EPS and $39.83 billion in revenue. The same period from last year had $0.72 in EPS and $40.52 billion in revenue.

During this quarter, AT&T noted that it had its best-ever postpaid phone churn of 0.79%, also including tablets of 1.01%.

There were 2.8 million wireless net adds in the quarter, with 2.3 million coming from the U.S., driven by connected devices, prepaid and postpaid. Separately, there were 476,000 net adds from Mexico.

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In terms of the international results, revenues grew by 10.8% with favorable operating trends, and continued revenue growth and margin improvement was seen in Mexico.

As for its segments:

• Business Wireless revenues were flat year over year at $9.7 billion.
• Business wireline revenues were $7.4 billion, down 5.9% from last year.
• Entertainment group had revenues of $12.7 billion, which were generally flat.
• Consumer Mobility revenues were down 4.8% at $7.8 billion.

In the brief AT&T also said that the firm expects to close its Time Warner merger by the end of the year.

Randall Stephenson, AT&T Chairman and CEO, commented:

Once again our team delivered expanded consolidated margins and, as a result, grew adjusted earnings per share by nearly 10% as we executed well against our business priorities. And 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.

Shares of AT&T closed Tuesday at $36.22, with a consensus analyst price target of $40.27 and a 52-week range of $35.81 to $43.50. Following the release of the earnings report, the stock was up 2% at $37.00 in the after-hours trading session.

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