Verizon netted nearly a quarter of a million (233,000) new FiOS TV customers, 225,000 net new FiOS Internet customers, and 1.5 million new wireless customers, all contributing to a healthy increase in third-quarter revenue.
CEO Ivan Seidenberg said: “The strategic investments we made over the past few years continue to drive growth in wireless, enterprise, broadband and video. Although the capital markets and economy may present challenges, we will continue to execute on our business plan and invest for future growth.”
Net income increased from $1.2 billion in the third quarter a year ago to $1.6 billion in the just-completed Q3, on revenue of $24.7 billion, a 4.1 percent year-over-year increase.
Verizon now has 1.6 million FiOS TV customers, compared with more than 700,000 FiOS TV customers at the end of third-quarter 2007, and 2.2 million FiOS Internet customers, up from 1.3 million a year ago.
Verizon reported that FiOS TV sales penetration increased to 19.7 percent, compared with 15.2 percent in last year’s third quarter. FiOS Internet sales penetration (sales as a percentage of potential customers) increased to 24.2 percent, compared with 20 percent in last year’s third quarter.
Verizon’s broadband fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP) network passed 11.9 million premises throughout the company’s wireline service territory by the end of the quarter.
Success with FiOS continues to come at some expense to Verizon’s DSL business. The company lost 96,000 DSL connections. Total broadband connections were 8.5 million.
On the wireless side, data services continue to be a rapidly growing money maker. Data revenues grew 42.5 percent over the prior year, to $2.8 billion. The company had 52.6 million retail data customers in September (approximately three-quarters of its retail base), a 25.3 percent increase over the prior year.
Verizon Wireless had 70.8 million total customers at the end of the quarter and boasted the lowest total churn in the industry – 1.33 percent. Retail post-paid churn was 1.03 percent.
The 1.5 million adds does not include 200,000-plus customers acquired with Verizon’s purchase of Rural Cellular in August.
More Broadband Direct:
• Cox to build, launch own wireless network by next year
• Verizon FiOS adds exceed DSL losses
• Time Warner Cable promotes Keib, Gray
• FiOS TV adds features in North Texas
• AT&T’s U-verse debuts in south central Wisconsin