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Verizon Communications Inc. showed signs of a business turnaround Tuesday, posting growth on a key subscriber metric for the first time in a year and surprising some analysts with the magnitude of that growth.
The company’s earnings report showed 318,000 consumer wireless retail postpaid phone net additions during the fourth quarter, which compared with 41,000 such net additions for the same period a year before.
While FactSet doesn’t track the metric, Visible Alpha listed a consensus view of 123,000 consumer wireless retail postpaid phone net adds.
Meanwhile, Verizon’s
VZ,
quarterly gross consumer postpaid phone additions rose 16.9% from a year before, marking the best performance in four years, according to the company.
It’s not unusual for Verizon to close out the year with its best quarterly subscriber performance, as the fourth quarter benefits from the holiday selling season and from hype around the latest iPhone line. But given Verizon’s recent struggles to pick up subscriber momentum, the scope of its upside in the latest period appears to be resonating with investors.
Shares of Verizon were up more than 5% in afternoon trading Tuesday.
In terms of financials, the wireless giant posted a fourth-quarter net loss of $2.6 billion, or 64 cents a share, whereas it recorded net income of $6.7 billion, or $1.56 a share, in the year-earlier quarter.
Verizon previously disclosed that it would take a $5.8 billion noncash goodwill impairment charge for the fourth quarter following a five-year planning review that resulted in lower projections for the company’s business wireline business than Verizon had previously.
On an adjusted basis, Verizon earned $1.08 a share, matching what analysts tracked by FactSet had been modeling.
Revenue came in at $35.1 billion, slightly below the $35.3 billion that the company reported a year prior. The FactSet consensus was for $34.6 billion.
Looking to the full year, Verizon models 2% to 2.5% total wireless service revenue growth for 2024. The FactSet consensus implied 2.4% growth. The company also expects adjusted earnings per share of $4.50 to $4.70, while analysts had been modeling $4.60.
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