Verizon profit beats estimates as more users sign up
(Reuters) - Verizon Communications Inc's quarterly profit beat analysts' expectations, helped by higher net addition of postpaid subscribers as users added more devices to data plans.
Shares of Verizon rose 0.6 percent to $49.65 in premarket trading.
The largest U.S wireless company added a net 565,000 retail postpaid subscribers in the first quarter ended March 31. Customer defections, known as churn, in postpaid accounts fell to 1.03 percent from 1.07 percent a year earlier.
Total revenue in the company's wireless business rose 6.9 percent to $22.33 billion. Revenue in its FiOS Internet and video product business rose 10.2 percent to $3.35 billion.
Verizon's retail postpaid average revenue per account fell to $156.14 from $159.67.
Net income attributable to Verizon was $4.22 billion, or $1.02 per share, in the first quarter, compared with $3.95 billion, or $1.15 per share, a year earlier.
Revenue rose to $31.98 billion from $30.82 billion.
Analysts on average had expected earnings of 95 cents per share on revenue of $32.27 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
(Reporting by Malathi Nayak in New York and Supantha Mukherjee in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel)
