AT&T sees big subscriber gains as earnings top expectations

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Shares of AT&T were gaining successful premarket trading Thursday aft the telecommunications elephantine posted better-than-expected nett for its 3rd 4th and continued to spot beardown subscriber additions successful its wireless business.

The institution posted nett income of $5.9 billion, oregon 2 cents a share, astir treble the $2.8 billion, oregon 39 cents a share, that AT&T T, +1.25% reported successful the year-prior quarter. After adjustments, AT&T earned 87 cents a share, up from 76 cents a twelvemonth earlier and supra the FactSet consensus, which called for 78 cents a share.

AT&T’s gross declined to $39.9 cardinal from $42.3 billion, which the institution said reflected the spinoff of its U.S. video concern arsenic good arsenic little concern wireless revenue. Analysts tracked by FactSet were modeling $40.6 billion.

Shares are up 1.1% successful premarket trading Thursday.

Revenue for AT&T’s communications portion accrued to $28.2 cardinal from $27.2 billion. That included gross from the company’s mobility unit, which roseate to $19.1 cardinal from $17.9 cardinal arsenic AT&T benefited from higher work and instrumentality revenue. Within mobility, AT&T saw 1.22 cardinal nett additions, including 928,000 postpaid telephone nett additions.

The company’s postpaid telephone churn was 0.72% successful the 4th compared with 0.69% a twelvemonth earlier, though AT&T said that churn improved erstwhile adjusted for the Keep America Connected program, done which telecommunications companies pledged to proceed providing work to customers who had occupation paying their bills owed to the pandemic.

The WarnerMedia concern saw gross turn to $8.4 cardinal from $7.4 billion. WarnerMedia benefited from higher contented gross and saw a “partial betterment from prior-year impacts of the pandemic,” per its release. Subscription gross accrued to $4.0 cardinal from $3.5 billion, chiefly reflecting traction for the HBO Max streaming service. AT&T had 69.4 cardinal planetary HBO Max and HBO subscribers astatine the extremity of the 3rd quarter.

AT&T anticipates that its full-year adjusted net per stock volition “be astatine the precocious extremity of the low- to mid-single digit maturation range” and the institution said that it’s “on track” with its free-cash-flow target, which is successful the “$26 cardinal range.” AT&T besides expects that its HBO Max and HBO planetary subscriber number volition autumn astatine the “higher end” of its 70 cardinal to 73 cardinal target.

Shares of AT&T person declined 9.9% truthful acold this twelvemonth arsenic the S&P 500 SPX, +0.37% has risen 20.8%.

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