Thanks to gains from its data and wireless businesses, Verizon reported that its fourth-quarter revenues were up 5.5 percent compared with the same quarter last year.
Verizon reported fourth-quarter revenues of $23.8 billion for the quarter ended Dec. 31, which topped the $22.6 billion that the telco reported in Q4 2006.
Overall, Verizon’s net income increased from $1.03 billion to $1.07 billion in the past quarter.
“In the fourth quarter, the momentum of revenue growth and margin expansion continued to drive double-digit earnings growth, and we once again reported strong growth in sales of all our strategic products,” said Verizon Chairman and CEO Ivan Seidenberg. “Throughout 2007, Verizon’s results consistently showed success in what we set out to do: grow revenue, capture market share, improve margins, increase productivity and provide the best customer experience.”
Verizon added a net of 226,000 new FiOS TV customers. The company had 943,000 FiOS TV customers by year-end and announced today that it had added its one-millionth FiOS TV customer earlier this month.
Including satellite TV customers served through its partnership with DirecTV (a net of 63,000 added this quarter), Verizon has more than 1.8 million video customers.
Verizon’s broadband fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP) network, which delivers FiOS Internet and FiOS TV services to customers, passed more than 9.3 million premises by year-end. Estimated earnings dilution from FiOS was 9 cents per share in the fourth quarter.
FiOS Internet was available for sale to 7.5 million premises in parts of 17 states by year-end.
Penetration for the service averaged 20.6 percent across all markets. FiOS TV was available for sale to 5.9 million premises in parts of 13 states by year-end. Penetration for the service averaged 16 percent across all markets.
The company added a total of 264,000 broadband customers in the quarter, including FiOS and DSL. Data revenues increased 12.8 percent, to $4.8 billion.
Verizon Wireless’ customer numbers increased 11.3 percent year-over-year to total 65.7 million.
Wireless revenues for the quarter were $11.4 billion, up 13.3 percent from a year ago. Verizon Wireless added two million customers during the quarter, including 1.9 million net retail customer additions.
Some of Verizon’s gains were partially offset by a 1.4 percent decrease in overall wireline revenue.
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