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Verizon’s wireless strength continues, but Oath stumbles

by Kelly Hill
written by Kelly Hill Share
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Verizon 5g carrier aggregation fiber

Verizon expects Oath unit to miss 2020 revenue target

Verizon’s wireless and internet of things businesses continue to be a source of strength, but the company’s Oath media and advertising business reported lower revenues and is expected to miss its revenue target of earning $10 billion by 2020.

Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg praised the company’s “strong operational and financial performance,” adding, “With the beginning of the 5G era in this fourth quarter, we expect that trend to continue. We are investing in networks, creating platforms to add value for customers and maintaining a focused, disciplined strategy.”

Among Verizon’s results on the wireless side:

-The company reported 515,000 retail postpaid net additions. The company added the following details in terms of its net additions for the quarter: net phone additions of 295,000; postpaid smartphone net additions were 510,000; tablet losses of 80,000 and additions of 300,000 other devices, which Verizon said primarily consisted of wearables. Retail postpaid smartphone churn was 0.8%.

-Revenues were up 6.5% year-over-year for wireless, with the unit reporting revenues of $23 billion.

-About 83% of Verizon’s postpaid phone was are on unsubsidized plans, up from 78% in the same time period last year.

– Verizon’s year-to-date capital expenditures were $12 billion through the third quarter, which the company noted included support for its LTE network as well as its commercial launch of its 5G Home service,  and “significant fiber deployment in markets nationwide and the pre-positioning for additional 5G services.”

Analyst Walt Piecyk of BTIG noted that Verizon reduced its 2018 capital expenditure guidance:

On the wireline side, Verizon reported 54,000 Fios internet net additions and total Fios revenues of $3 billion, up 1.5% from the same period last year.

Meanwhile, Oath’s revenues were down nearly 7% from the same period last year, to $1.8 billion in the third quarter of 2018. “The company expects Oath revenues to be relatively flat in the near term and does not expect to meet the previous target of $10 billion in Oath revenues by 2020,” Verizon said.

The Verizon Connect telematics business saw revenues of $241 million in the quarter. Verizon said that its IoT revenues, including Verizon Connect, were up about 12% year-over-year.

Analyst Bill Ho, founder of 556 Ventures, made a number of observations on Twitter on Verizon’s results:

 

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Kelly Hill reports on network test and measurement, AI infrastructure and regulatory issues, including spectrum, for RCR Wireless News. She began covering the wireless industry in 2005, focusing on carriers and MVNOs, then took a few years’ hiatus and returned to RCR Wireless News to write about heterogeneous networks (remember those?) and network infrastructure. Kelly is an Ohio native with a masters degree in journalism from the University of California, Berkeley, where she focused on science writing and multimedia. She has written for the San Francisco Chronicle, The Oregonian and The Canton Repository. She lives in northern Virginia, not far from Data Center Alley.

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