First quarter 2008 results.

Not bad at all.

 

yeah thier getting rich. or richer.

 

They needed this news... They are laying off eliminating 4600 jobs in the wireline side...

 

join 2 like companys and your bound to have redundancys

 

Talk about parallels. WOW!

 

44 billion text messages... haha... wow...... how much does it cost a carrier to process a text message?

 

i have never seen hard data on this, but ive heard bar room talk about it being less than 1cent. i believe it. hopefully someone has a link to something a little more concrete.

 

The "I-heard-it-costs-carriers $0.0001 to-send-an-SMS" is the biggest urban myth I've heard in cellular world. SMS is a SERVICE there is no "mark-up". If a massuse comes to your house and charges you $100 for a massage, what's the mark-up? Nothing. Its a service. The massuse has to eat, pay for rent, etc. You're paying for the time, effort, etc. Same with SMS. The carrier factors the price into their over-all OPEX and comes up with a number.

...on the topic of quaterly reports, Ericsson reported a 55% drop in revenue and it's stocks jumped +20%. Stock market. Go figure

Ericsson shares soar as profit beats expectations - International Herald Tribune

 

Verizon on Monday reported net income of $1.64 billion, or 57 cents a share, for the quarter, compared with $1.5 billion, or 51 cents a share, a year earlier. Earnings excluding items and discontinued operations rose to 61 cents from 54 cents.

Revenue rose 5.5% to $23.83 billion.

Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had expected earnings, excluding items, of 61 cents a share on revenue of $23.86 billion.

In March, Verizon Chief Financial Officer Doreen Toben reassured Wall Street that the telecom giant was on track to duplicate its solid performance from last year, but hinted that an economic slowdown was making a small dent in its wireless business. In the past several months, telecom operators signaled to various degrees they were being affected by broader economic problems as consumers pulled back on spending. Cable operators and satellite operators have also have blamed lackluster results partly on the souring economy.

In focus has been the rate of customers who have canceled their services because they could no longer afford to pay their bills. Toben said during a conference call Monday the rate in the landline side had improved, while the wireless side had stabilized.

As with AT&T, the wireless business drove total results. Verizon Wireless, a joint venture with Vodafone Group PLC (VOD), had a revenue increase of 13%. The turnover rate rose to 1.18% from 1.08% a year earlier. Average monthly revenue per customer rose 1.3%.

New-subscriber growth dipped 12% to 1.5 million, still the industry's top mark, putting total subscribership at 67.2 million. More importantly, 1.3 million of the new customers signed long-term contracts, or nearly twice as many as AT&T had in the first quarter.

The $99 unlimited calling plans, which all of the carriers unveiled in February, was driving growth in high-end consumers and was accretive to results, said Dennis Strigl, chief operating officer of Verizon.

 

Here's another take on Verizon's 1st Quarter report:

Entire article available at Marketwatch.com

Verizon profit up 10% on wireless, data
Phone giant adds 1.5 million net wireless customers

Wireless results

Verizon finished the first quarter with 67.2 million mobile customers, trailing only AT&T Inc., which serves 71.4 million. AT&T gained 1.3 million net customers in the first quarter, though almost half came from less profitable prepaid or wholesale channels.

By contrast, 1.3 million of Verizon's customers signed up directly with the company through so-called postpaid plans in which they commit to an annual contract and pay at the end of each month. Postpaid customers are the most valuable in the industry.

Verizon's advantage in postpaid customers had given the company an edge over AT&T in total wireless sales, but for the first time in several years AT&T actually gained the edge. AT&T reported $11.8 billion in mobile revenue compared to $11.7 billion for Verizon Wireless.

Verizon operates its mobile business as part of a joint venture with U.K.-based Vodafone Group PLC.

Verizon's churn rate was flat at 1.2% compared with the fourth quarter, still the industry's lowest rate. AT&T's churn rate was 1.7%.

Churn is a key industry measure that indicates a company's success in satisfying subscribers. It reflects the percentage of customers who cancel service, usually to switch to a rival provider.

 

Man Verizon has some good numbers

 

Does anyone have dates when Sprint, T-Mobile, Alltel, and others release their reports?

 

I remember when Verizon was catching up with Cingular and had only about 2 million customers difference. Now that difference has grown to over 4 million customers. Whatever happened to the predictions that Verizon was going to become #1 again?

Also, for the first time I see Verizon's churn increase. I guess once you near the 1% mark you will remain flat overall. Can't go lower than that.

 

Sprint's will be released on May 12th.

 

T-Mobile will report on May 8th. US Cellular will report on May 7th.

 

Bobolito, you know the answer to this one...AT&T adding Dobson's 1.7 million customers has make a big difference, and it has. Not to mention some of the other smaller ops AT&T has bought out recently.

Even without the purchases, I believe the iPhone has kept AT&T from losing more ground as well. Remember 4th Qtr. 2007? AT&T gained a bit on Verizon by having a monster quarter and the iPhone had a LOT to do with it.

I still believe they would be nearly neck and neck at this point IF the iPhone, the Dobson purchase, and all other purchases that have padded BOTH their numbers in the last few years, were not a factor. Of course, the belief that any of these situations would not have happened is silly considering the wireless industry is constantly changing and ever evolving.

All I can say is that I'm happy with both carriers right now...

 

well not only that, if you look at an Old cingular coverage map and what ATT has now...they have made huge gains on verizon and others in coverage

also the phone selection in general (excluding the iphone) seems to be a little more attractive to buyers then what other companys like verizon have to offer.

part of that is the advantage to being GSM/UMTS i guess.

either way though i think there is definetly some good competition going on in this industry. anyone that thinks one company has the upperhand on another may be a little jaded IMO. its still anyones ball game.

 

True Verizon can't use the RCC (Unicel) subs since the FCC hasn't gotten around to approving their merger yet.

 

If my quartely bonus is an indicator...should be some pretty good news for tmobile this time around!:biggrin:

 

The RCC merger inculdes about 700k subscribers. So not nearly as much as the recent AT&T pickups.

 

What does it matte if you are number "one". It proves nothing to me as long as you are steady and keep adding people and margins are up then hey that is great.

 

Qwest announced 816,000 total wireless users at end of 1Q08. As a MVNO, these numbers would have been included in the total numbers released by Sprint. This will change in the future as Qwest customers are slowly transitioned over to Verizon.

 

Do you have a link to the article with this information?

 

That's not really the point. I was just wondering whatever happened to that. I was hoping to get some interesting answers.

 

USCC 1Q Report

Service and data revenues up 12 percent and 49 percent in the quarter

Note: Comparisons are year over year unless otherwise noted.

1Q 2008 Highlights

11.8 percent increase in service revenues, to $962.1 million.
49.2 percent increase in data revenues, to $115.7 million, representing 12 percent of service revenues.
6.9 percent increase in ARPU (average monthly service revenue per unit), to $52.06.
9.6 percent increase in operating income, to $119 million.
Retail postpay churn was 1.4 percent; postpay customers comprised 95 percent of retail customers.
7.5 percent increase in cell sites in service, to 6,452.
Repurchased 150,000 common shares for $10.8 million, to offset dilution from employee benefit plans and seek to increase value to shareholders.
CHICAGO, May 7 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- United States Cellular Corporation (Amex: USM) reported service revenues of $962.1 million for the first quarter of 2008, an 11.8 percent increase from $860.6 million in the comparable period one year ago. The company recorded operating income of $119 million, an increase of 9.6 percent from $108.5 million in the first quarter of 2007. Net income and diluted earnings per share were $70.6 million and $0.80, respectively, compared to $74.4 million and $0.84, respectively, in the comparable period one year ago.*

* In the first quarter of 2007, the company recorded a $12.5 million pre-tax gain on fair value adjustment of derivative instruments related to the derivative component of the Vodafone Group Plc variable prepaid forward contracts.

Continued growth in data revenues drives service revenues and ARPU

"U.S. Cellular experienced strong growth in data revenues this quarter," said John E. Rooney, U.S. Cellular president and CEO, "driven in part by new smartphones like the BlackBerry(R) Pearl(TM) and their related data plans, and by customers' increased use of messaging services. The 49 percent increase in data revenues helped to drive up both service revenues and ARPU. The growth in service revenues was partly offset by growth in operating expenses, however, resulting in lower margins. We also had solid net retail customer additions in the quarter, and maintained a low, 1.4-percent retail postpay churn rate.

"We continue to focus on providing a consistently high-quality wireless experience," added Rooney, "in terms of network strength and reliability and exceptional customer service. We received our fifth consecutive J.D. Power and Associates award for call quality this quarter, and our associates are committed to exceeding our customers' expectations for service and satisfaction."

Strengthened footprint with new spectrum

U.S. Cellular participated in Auction 73, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) auction of spectrum in the 700 MHz band, through its interest in King Street Wireless L.P. King Street Wireless was the provisional winning bidder for 152 licenses for an aggregate bid of $300.5 million, net of its designated entity discount, which was recorded in licenses on U.S. Cellular's balance sheet as of March 31, 2008. The FCC has not yet awarded any of the licenses to winning bidders. The licenses expected to be awarded to King Street Wireless cover areas that overlap or are proximate or contiguous to areas covered by licenses that U.S. Cellular currently owns, operates, and/or consolidates in its financial statements.

United States Cellular Corporation, the nation's sixth-largest, full-service wireless carrier, provides a comprehensive range of wireless products and services, excellent customer support, and a high-quality network to more than 6.2 million customers in 26 states. The Chicago-based company employed 8,700 associates as of March 31, 2008. For more information about U.S. Cellular

News Release

 

This is America, no one wants to be associated with the loser. You want to be on board with the winning team!

 

T-Mobile USA Reports Strong Q1 Net Adds: 981,000 New Customers

T-Mobile USA Breaks 30 Million Customer Milestone and Reports First Quarter 2008 Results: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance

- 981,000 net new customers added in the first quarter
-- Total customer additions of 2.1 million, including acquired SunCom base
-- Service revenues of $4.6 billion in the first quarter of 2008, up 14% from the first quarter of 2007
-- $1.44 billion Operating Income Before Depreciation and Amortization ("OIBDA") in the first quarter of 2008, up 18% from the first quarter of 2007
-- Contract customer churn 1.7% in the first quarter, down from 1.9% in the first quarter of 2007
-- Acquisition of SunCom Wireless closed February 22
-- 3rd generation UMTS/HSDPA network launched in New York City on May 5 - 3G network to lay the foundation for future growth

Blended Average Revenue Per User (“ARPU” as defined in note 1 to the Selected Data, below) was $51 in the first quarter of 2008, down from $52 in the fourth and first quarters of 2007.

Contract ARPU was $55 in the first quarter of 2008, down from $56 in the fourth and first quarters of 2007. The sequential fall in contract ARPU was primarily due to lower variable revenues from contract customers.

Data services revenues were $760 million in the first quarter of 2008, representing 16.6% of blended ARPU, or $8.50 per customer, compared to 15.8% of blended ARPU, or $8.20 per customer in the fourth quarter of 2007, and 14.3% of blended ARPU, or $7.50 per customer in first quarter of 2007.

Growth in messaging revenue continued to be the most significant driver of data ARPU. The total number of SMS and MMS messages increased to 33 billion in the first quarter of 2008, compared to 24 billion in the fourth quarter of 2007 and 16 billion in the first quarter of 2007. A major driver of the growth in messaging is the popularity of myFaves.

 

Wirelessly posted (Walkguru's: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows 98; PalmSource/Palm-D062; Blazer/4.5) 16;320x320)

everone is doing good except sprint. competion is good. gotta love that.