Verizon wi-fi subscriber progress hits 5-yr excessive, revenue view weak

By Harshita Mary Varghese

(Reuters) -Verizon Communications on Friday reported its greatest quarterly wi-fi subscriber progress in 5 years, fueled by strong demand for its customizable myPlan, Black Friday offers and trade-in presents for the AI-powered iPhone 16 collection.

The sturdy progress despatched its shares up about 1% and helped traders look previous annual revenue and free money movement forecasts that have been under Wall Road estimates.

Verizon (NYSE:VZ) has been pouring billions of {dollars} into the C-band spectrum, prized for its stability of velocity and vary, to enhance its 5G providing and outpace rivals AT&T (NYSE:T) and T-Cellular.

The spending can be key to reaching the corporate’s purpose of securing as much as 9 million subscribers for the mounted wi-fi service by 2028.

On Friday, the corporate unveiled Verizon AI Join, a set of merchandise and options designed for companies to handle synthetic intelligence workloads at scale, because it seems to be to capitalize on rising use of the booming expertise.

Verizon expects 2025 adjusted revenue to develop between 0% and three%, with the midpoint coming in under analysts’ estimates for progress of two.7%, in keeping with information compiled by LSEG.

Free money movement, a metric that helps traders decide dividend, is predicted to be between $17.5 billion and $18.5 billion this 12 months. The midpoint was under estimates of $18.44 billion, in keeping with Seen Alpha.

In October, Verizon projected capital spending for 2025 between $17.5 billion and $18.5 billion, in contrast with $17.1 billion in 2024.

Within the fourth quarter, the corporate added 568,000 month-to-month bill-paying wi-fi subscribers, outpacing FactSet estimates of 487,500 additions. It benefited from worth will increase carried out in 2024 and the recognition of myPlan, which comes with streaming perks together with Disney+, Hulu and Max at an additional price.

“The wi-fi market is very aggressive, and Verizon has not too long ago elevated handset promotional exercise and simplified pricing to draw and retain client subscribers,” mentioned Dave Heger, communications providers analyst at Edward Jones.

Greater than half of Verizon’s cellular buyer base is on myPlan. 

Wi-fi tools income grew about 1% to $7.5 billion within the fourth quarter because of greater machine improve volumes. General income was $35.7 billion, barely above estimates of $35.32 billion.