AT&T 4Q Earnings Soar Thanks to Partnership, Acquisitions
01/24/2008
AT&T Inc.’s fourth-quarter 2007 earnings soared 61.8 percent to $3.14 billion, or 51 cents per share, thanks to the addition of 2.7 net wireless subscribers.
That’s compared to $1.94 billion in income, or 30 cents per share, during the same period a year earlier. Those numbers did not include results from BellSouth, which AT&T bought in December 2006.
Sales, meanwhile, jumped 91 percent to $30.35 billion, up from $15.9 billion a year earlier. AT&T said that was mostly thanks to BellSouth revenue, but also due to the Apple iPhone partnership and the piling on of nearly 400,000 new high-speed Internet subscribers.
Speaking of the iPhone deal, AT&T closed the fourth quarter with 70.1 million wireless customers, more than any other carrier in the United States. Much of that was due to the acquisition of Dobson Communications. Sales topped out at $11.4 billion, a 16.3 percent increase. Churn remained unchanged, compared to the third quarter of 2007, at 1.7 percent.
AT&T also is making strides with its U-verse fiber-optic TV service. By Dec. 31, it claimed 231,000 subscribers, a gain of 105,000.
Despite the good news on Thursday, shares of the nation’s largest phone company were down 98 cents during mid-morning trading, at $35.71. All tech stocks have taken a beating this week, however, because of general fears of recession and reactions of worldwide exchanges.
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