When Dan Schulman replaced Hans Vestberg as CEO of Verizon in October, he spoke about changing the carrier's priorities from profits first to customers first. As we told you on Friday after Verizon released its Q4 2025 earnings report, the carrier blew past expectations and reported net new postpaid phone adds of 616,000, the best quarter Verizon has reported for that category since 2019. It was a 22.2% year-over-year increase. Look at that. His first partial quarter as CEO and already Schulman has Verizon acting like the John Legere-era T-Mobile.
Verizon needs to attack T-Mobile's plan to go digital
If Schulman does want to follow in T-Mobile's footprints, there are still more things that Schulman needs to do. Copying from the John Legere playbook, the next step for Verizon is to advertise constantly and keep the Verizon name in the public eye. Legere used to court young adults by offering perks like free Netflix, a spectacular rewards program in T-Mobile Tuesdays, and a catchy company nickname like the "Un-carrier." He also constantly made fun of the competition by calling them "Dumb and Dumber."
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Will Verizon succeed in putting customers-first?
We're not saying that Schulman needs to insult T-Mobile and AT&T, but Verizon does need to come up with some kind of advertising campaign that attacks T-Mobile for transitioning into a digital carrier. The first advertisements should practically write themselves. They should go after the controversial and buggy T-Life app that T-Mobile is making its customers use to handle most transactions, while stressing that Verizon customers still deal with real live people.
Dan Schulman, Verizon's new CEO, is off to a great start. | Image credit-LinkedIn
Verizon's new CEO isn't making an empty promise. He is as serious about putting customers first at Verizon as T-Mobile is about firing reps, shutting stores, and going digital. Schulman says, "We will aggressively transform our culture, our cost structure, and the financial profile of Verizon in order to put our customers first, compete effectively, and deliver sustainable returns for our shareholders."
Can Verizon build a new culture by putting "customers-first"?
Speaking of Verizon shareholders, they had a great day once the earnings report was released. Verizon shares soared $4.71 on Friday, or 11.83%, to $44.52. The 52-week high is $47.35, which was reached on March 10th, 2025. So, Schulman's tenure as Verizon's CEO is off to a good start. Can he sustain this positive momentum? To do so, the carrier needs to make consumers forget about the seven-hour outage that took place earlier this month. The outage kept Verizon subscribers from making and taking calls and accessing apps and websites. Offering great deals on wireless service and devices could go a long way toward making that happen.
It won't be easy to build a new culture at Verizon and get consumers to believe it. Most of Verizon's long-term subscribers have stayed with the wireless provider over the years because they didn't care if they paid more for their monthly service. Verizon customers felt that they were paying for and getting the best wireless service in the U.S. In an advertisement released last year, T-Mobile even admitted that Verizon's wireless service was once considered the best back in the day.
The U.S. wireless landscape could look much different a year from now
As a long time Verizon customer myself (about two decades as a subscriber), the carrier always acted like it was the premium wireless provider and as such, its pricing was always higher, and most Verizon reps were not friendly (or even knowledgeable). This left T-Mobile with a huge opening it could exploit under John Legere. T-Mobile became fun and the teens and young adults ate it up. Prices were lower compared to Verizon and the perks were greater.
The U.S. wireless landscape could look much different a year from now. T-Mobile could be mostly digital, and Verizon could be the new T-Mobile offering subscribers lower prices and greater freebies. AT&T? They still have yet to find an identity, which is something they are going to have to come up with eventually.
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Alan, an ardent smartphone enthusiast and a veteran writer at PhoneArena since 2009, has witnessed and chronicled the transformative years of mobile technology. Owning iconic phones from the original iPhone to the iPhone 15 Pro Max, he has seen smartphones evolve into a global phenomenon. Beyond smartphones, Alan has covered the emergence of tablets, smartwatches, and smart speakers.
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