AT&T has just posted its Q3 2013 earnings report, and the wireless side of the company's business is growing as it seems to do every quarter. The nation's second-largest carrier posted growth in revenues, earnings, subscribers — here's the breakdown:
- $17.5 billion in revenues, up 5.1 percent year-over-year
- $15.5 billion in wireless service revenues, up 3.7 percent y-o-y
- $5.5 billion in wireless data revenues, up 17.6 percent y-o-y
- $4.6 billion in operating income, up 3.4 percent y-o-y
- 989,000 net subscribers added in the quarter
Those are some solid numbers for the carrier, and AT&T is seeing growth in all the right places. Postpaid ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) for smartphones is up 3.1 percent for the quarter (and up 1.5 percent when factoring tablets), and data ARPU was up 16.7 percent.
Following 1.2 million postpaid smartphones added in the quarter, a full 75 percent of AT&T's postpaid subscriber base is now using smartphones, up from 66 percent a year ago. About 72 percent of AT&T's postpaid customers are also moved over to either Mobile Share or tiered individual data plans as well.
Overall postpaid churn (the number of customers leaving the carrier) was down slightly year-over-year to 1.07 percent in Q3, but up from Q2. Total churn, including prepaid, was just 1.31 percent for the quarter. In terms of smartphone sales, AT&T says it sold a record 6.7 million in the quarter (89 percent of postpaid phone sales), but didn't further break down which operating systems were sold most.
Source: AT&T (BusinessWire)
