AT&T reports first quarter earnings with 72% of subscribers wielding a smartphone

AT&T earned $3.7 billion for its first quarter, just edging out the $3.6 billion that the company made in the 2012 period. Revenue of $31.4 billion was down 1.5% over last year. Wireless revenue from data rose a healthy 21% in Q1, but including everything, wireless revenue was up 3.4% in the period. With a record number of Q1 smartphone sales, AT&T's wireless operating income margin was 28%. Looking at actual figures, the wireless team brought in $16.7 billion in revenue over the three months, with $4.66 billion in profits recorded. With postpaid churn down to 1.04%, AT&T added 296,000 new postpaid accounts to its rolls, but 365,000 of those came from new tablet subscribers.

With 1.2 million new smartphone subscribers, 88% of phone sales over the three month period were for the brainy handsets. The company sold 6 million of them over the three months, a new record for the first quarter. 72% or 48.3 million AT&T customers have smartphones, up from 61% or 41.2 million subscribers at the end of the 2012 first quarter. After reporting the numbers, AT&T shares dropped 72 cents in after-hour trading to $38.28. Earlier on Tuesday, the shares scored a new 52 week high at $39.00.


source: AT&T, Slashgear via Engadget