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AT&T misses on Q1 revenues, cites low wireless equipment sales

Additionally, AT&T is no longer providing revenue guidance primarily due to "the unpredictability of wireless handset sales."
Written by Stephanie Condon, Senior Writer

AT&T delivered mixed first quarter financial results on Tuesday, with revenues falling below market expectations.

The company reported adjusted earnings of 74 cents a share on revenues of $39.4 billion. Wall Street was looking for 74 cents a share on revenues of $40.6 billion.

Revenue was down from $40.5 billion a year prior, "primarily due to record-low equipment sales in wireless," AT&T said.

The company noted it had 2.7 million wireless net adds for the quarter. Most of those, 2.1 million, were from the US, driven by prepaid and connected devices. AT&T reported its best ever first-quarter postpaid phone churn of 0.9 percent and wireless postpaid churn of 1.12 percent.

AT&T also highlighted its strong broadband gains, with with 242,000 IP broadband net adds and 115,000 total broadband net adds. It has 4.6 million AT&T Fiber customer locations, with plans to add two million in 2017.

"In a very competitive quarter, we continued to execute on our goals of driving efficiencies in our business while growing adjusted earnings per share," said Randall Stephenson, AT&T Chairman and CEO, in a statement. "But just as important, the strategic moves we've made over the last few months to expand our wireless capacity and fortify our 5G leadership will be felt for years to come.

Stephenson cited AT&T's planned acquisitions of Fiber Tower and Straight Path. However, StraightPath announced earlier Tuesday that it has received a competing, unsolicited buyout offer that amounts to a "superior proposal." AT&T said in a statement to ZDNet that it is evaluating its next move.

AT&T on Tuesday updated its guidance for 2017, saying that it expects adjusted EPS growth in the mid-single digit range. However, the company said it is "no longer providing consolidated revenue guidance primarily due to the unpredictability of wireless handset sales."

Your original iPhone won't work on AT&T's network anymore

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