AT&T gained wireless and internet subscribers in the second quarter and announced plans to invest further in its fiber-cable build-out with some of the billions of dollars it expects in tax savings under the recent tax-and-spending bill.
The company added 401,000 net postpaid wireless phone connections in the second quarter, a slowdown from the year-ago period, when the company added 419,000. Still, the figure handily beat expectations; analysts polled by FactSet expected 302,600 net additions.
AT&T also added 150,000 net broadband connections, nearly three times the gains it reported in the prior-year period. The increase was driven largely by fixed-wireless service.
Revenue rose 3.4% year over year to $30.8 billion, above analysts’ estimate of $30.5 billion. Net income attributable to common stock rose to $4.5 billion from $3.5 billion in the prior-year period.
AT&T has aggressively expanded its home-internet footprint by building more fiber infrastructure and by upgrading the network that powers its fixed-wireless product.
The company has been urging customers to package its phone and home-internet products together, and has said for the past several quarters it expected the home-internet expansion to drive growth in phone connections.
AT&T’s gains stand in contrast to those that competitor Verizon Communications announced Monday. Verizon lost a net 9,000 postpaid phone connections in the second quarter.
Chief Executive John Stankey said in a call with analysts that several policy initiatives are converging to make this a particularly advantageous moment for the industry—including incentives to invest in new infrastructure, the opportunity to acquire more spectrum and regulatory rollbacks.
“I’ve not seen a situation where those tailwinds were all aligned as strong as they are at any time in my career as they are right now,” Stankey said.
AT&T said it expects to realize $6.5 billion to $8.0 billion in cash tax savings between this year and 2027, due to new policies enacted by President Trump’s recent tax-and-spending bill.
It plans to invest $3.5 billion of that savings into building out its fiber internet footprint. The company said it now expects more than 60 million locations by 2030, compared with its prior forecast of “about 60 million locations.” That figure includes additions from its planned acquisition of substantially all of Lumen Technologies’ consumer fiber business.
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