AT&T's Q3 misses analyst expectations by 1 cent, reports higher revenue

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Callie Lipkin

Randall Stephenson serves as the CEO of AT&T.

Danielle Abril

Staff Writer- Dallas Business Journal

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AT&T Inc. reported that it made $3 billion, or 58 cents per diluted share, on $33 billion in revenue during its third quarter, a drop in profit from last year's third quarter.

In the same quarter last year, the company posted a $3.8 billion in profit on $32.18 billion in revenue.

The results missed analysts expectations by one cent, raking in 63 cents per undiluted share versus the estimated 64 cents per share.

Dallas-based AT&T (NYSE: T) added more than 2 million new wireless and wireline high-speed broadband connections during the quarter. Its wireless revenues were up 4.9 percent from last year with wireless data billing up almost 24 percent. The quarter represented AT&T's record third quarter smartphone gross adds and upgrades. The company had 6.8 million postpaid smartphone gross adds and upgrades, 2.4 million of which were on AT&T Next. It also had its best-ever third quarter postpaid churn at .99 percent.

In its wireline service, AT&T's revenue popped 3 percent. U-verse revenues were up 23.8 percent and now represents a $15 billion revenue stream.

During the quarter, the company also completed the sale of the America Movil equity investment, closed the Connecticut wireline property transaction two months ahead of schedule and exited select low-margin wireline wholesale businesses.

Here were some of the other highlights:

• AT&T plans to roll out its GigaPower Service to 17 markets.
• 600,000 new business customers are in fiber, helping the company get closer to its 1 million customer goal.
• The company has seen 80 percent of its smartphone base move to usage-based plans.
• In the third quarter, AT&T added 500,000 connected cars as the 2015 models begin to roll off the manufacturing lines.
• Digital Life, AT&T's home security and automation platform, has launched in 82 markets with 140,000 subscribers.
• The company also completed a network-on-demand trial in Austin to enable companies to order, add or change services in near real-time.
• Management also discussed where it stands in its merger with DirecTV.

Danielle covers technology, retail, restaurants and hospitality for the Dallas Business Journal. Subscribe to our email newsletters.