Verizon's first quarter on target; Wireless shines

Verizon ended the first quarter with 67.2 million wireless subscribers and 1.8 million FiOS Internet and TV customers.

Verizon's first quarter earnings (statement), delivered Monday, were solid across the board and met Wall Street estimates. Verizon reported net income of $1.64 billion, or 57 cents a share, on revenue of $23.8 billion, up 5.5 percent from a year ago. Excluding charges, Verizon reported earnings of 61 cents a share.

Like AT&T, Verizon's wireless unit was the strongest. Verizon added 1.5 million net customers to give it a total of 67.2 million. Verizon has 65.2 million retail customers. The company's total churn was 1.19 percent and 0.93 on a retail post-paid basis. For comparison AT&T reported 71.4 million wireless subscribers, a total churn was 1.7 percent and retail churn of 1.2 percent. There may be some concern about the deceleration of Verizon's wireless customer additions, but overall the company is navigating an economic slowdown well.

In a statement, Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg said he was "confident of our position over the long term" and talked up the company's wireless open development initiative.

By the numbers:

• Wireless revenue was $11.7 billion, up 13.2 percent from a year ago. Service revenue was $10.1 billion. Operating margin for the wireless unit was 27.9 percent. Verizon Wireless had an average cash expense per customer of $28.05 in the first quarter, down 2.4 percent from a year ago.
• Wireless data revenue was up 48.9 percent to $2.3 billion and 58 percent of Verizon Wireless' retail customers (38 million) had broadband capable devices at the end of the first quarter.
• Verizon Wireless customers sent or received more than 58 billion text messages and 1.1 billion picture/video messages. Customers completed 34.6 million music and video downloads.
• Verizon added 263,000 new FiOS TV customers bringing its total to 1.2 million. Verizon's FiOS network now passes 10.4 million premises and the company said it filed an application to offer video in New York City.

• Verizon added 266,000 new broadband connections and most of them were for FiOS. Total broadband connections were 8.5 million (6.7 million in DSL and 1.8 million for FiOS.
• Wireline data revenue is 40 percent of total wireline revenue of $4.9 billion. That figure includes revenue from consumer broadband, wholesale data transport and Verizon Business data services.
• Verizon's business unit had revenue of $5.2 billion, up 0.4 percent from a year ago.