NEW YORK-Verizon Wireless said it added approximately 1.5 million net subscribers during the fourth quarter of 2003 compared with 970,000 net customer additions during the fourth quarter of 2002. The strong quarterly growth pushed Verizon Wireless’ full-year net customer additions to more than 5 million subscribers, compared with 3.1 million in 2002, and extended its position as the largest carrier in the country with 37.5 million subscribers at the end of last year.
A substantial reduction in customer churn helped fuel Verizon Wireless’ strong customer growth, with the carrier reporting 1.7-percent churn during the fourth quarter of 2003 compared with 2.1-percent churn during the final three months of 2002. For the year customer churn dropped from 2.3 percent in 2002 to 1.8 percent last year.
Verizon Wireless also reported total wireless revenues increased 14.6 percent during the fourth quarter from $5.2 billion in 2002 to $6 billion last year. Full-year revenues increased 15.5 percent from $19.5 billion in 2002 to $22.5 billion last year.
Average revenue per user remained flat for both the fourth quarter and full year at $49, while data services contributed a reported 3 percent to total revenues in the fourth quarter of last year and 2 percent for the full year.
