(Reuters) -AT&T’s (T) fourth-quarter wi-fi subscriber development surpassed expectations on Monday, fueled by sturdy demand for its discounted premium plans combining 5G cellular with high-speed fiber information providers.
Shares of the corporate rose about 2% in premarket buying and selling.
The U.S. telecom big added 482,000 web month-to-month bill-paying wi-fi telephone subscribers within the vacation quarter, outpacing analysts’ estimated good points of 424,550, in line with Seen Alpha.
Because the pool of potential new wi-fi prospects shrinks in america, AT&T’s technique of bundling high-speed fiber web with wi-fi telephone providers has helped drive development for the corporate.
Its fiber enterprise added 307,000 new prospects within the fourth quarter, larger than 226,000 additions within the prior quarter, marking its greatest fourth-quarter fiber web additions.
The final three months of the yr are usually sturdy for telecom operators, pushed by components resembling Black Friday promotions, trade-in offers for brand new iPhone launches and the gift-giving season round Christmas, all of which contribute to larger subscriber additions.
Rival Verizon reported its greatest quarterly wi-fi subscriber development in 5 years on Friday, with 568,000 month-to-month bill-paying wi-fi subscribers added within the fourth quarter.
AT&T expects annual adjusted revenue between $1.97 and $2.07 per share, excluding the contribution from its 70% stake in DirecTV, which the corporate is promoting for $7.6 billion. It was not instantly clear if the vary might be in contrast with the estimate of $2.18 per share, in line with information compiled by LSEG.
AT&T mentioned final month that it anticipated free money move to be greater than $18 billion in 2027 and would attain greater than 50 million areas with fiber by 2029.
Excluding objects, it reported a revenue of 54 cents per share, larger than analysts’ estimate of fifty cents per share, in line with information compiled by LSEG.
Complete income rose about 1% to $32.3 billion, in contrast with an estimate of $32.04 billion.
AT&T started providing invoice credit for community outages from Jan. 9, a part of a brand new initiative to draw prospects in a extremely aggressive market.
(Reporting by Harshita Mary Varghese in Bengaluru; Enhancing by Pooja Desai)
