AT&T $T reported second-quarter results on Wednesday that beat analyst estimates on earnings per share and subscriber additions, with revenue rising 2.3% to $31.6 billion compared with the same period a year ago.
The telecom company posted adjusted EPS of $0.65 in the second quarter, topping analyst estimates of $0.59, as postpaid phone and internet additions both exceeded expectations
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AT&T $T reported second-quarter results on Wednesday that beat analyst estimates on earnings per share and subscriber additions, with revenue rising 2.3% to $31.6 billion compared with the same period a year ago.
On an adjusted basis, the company earned $0.65 per diluted share, clearing the $0.59 consensus forecast, according to the Wall Street Journal. Earnings per share from continuing operations were $0.66, up from $0.62 a year earlier.
The company's postpaid phone base grew by 432,000 net subscribers during the quarter, AT&T said. Analysts had forecast additions of roughly 338,500, according to the Wall Street Journal. Postpaid phone churn was 0.86%.
Internet subscriber growth also came in strong. Internet growth totaled 646,000 net additions across consumer and business accounts, with 367,000 coming from the fiber network and another 279,000 from fixed wireless — a record for the two categories combined, the company said. The quarter also represented the strongest consumer postpaid wireless account growth in more than three years.
Revenue in AT&T's advanced connectivity segment, which encompasses its domestic fiber and wireless operations, rose 5.1% year over year to generate operating income growth of 20.3%. Revenue from legacy services dropped 26%, reflecting AT&T's ongoing wind-down of its copper infrastructure.
AT&T Chairman and CEO John Stankey said the company is accelerating its planned share repurchases this year to approximately $10 billion, up from the roughly $8 billion it had outlined earlier. "We believe our network performance and operating scale can't be matched," Stankey said in a statement.
AT&T stock rose 1.41% on Wednesday.
The second-quarter results build on momentum from the first quarter, when AT&T added 294,000 postpaid phone net subscribers and 584,000 total internet net subscribers, also topping analyst expectations. That quarter's adjusted EPS of $0.57 cleared the $0.55 consensus estimate. First-quarter revenue reached $31.5 billion, a roughly 3% year-over-year increase.
AT&T now reaches more than 38.6 million total consumer and business locations with fiber and remains on track to exceed 40 million fiber locations by year-end 2026, the company said. More than 42% of households with AT&T's home internet service also subscribe to AT&T wireless.
AT&T left its full-year outlook intact, still targeting adjusted EPS in the $2.25-to-$2.35 range and free cash flow of at least $18 billion, while keeping in place its commitment to distribute $45 billion or more to shareholders by 2028 through dividends and buybacks.
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