AT&T’s second quarter numbers are in today, and the company has 
meet Wall Street’s expectations. The company saw its profits increase 30%, despite a slowing down of the U.S. economy. In the past few months AT&T’s stock has been driven down because of a feared recession, but today’s news sent the company’s shares up $1.08, to sell at $32.90 in morning trading.
AT&T has seen a loss of landline subscribers and is having trouble signing up new customers to it broadband service. Only 46,000 new customers were added, a number which disappointed analysts. But the company did add 170,000 new subscribers to its TV service U-verse, which now has a base of 549,000 customers.
The company is expecting big numbers from Apple’s second generation iPhone, which is exclusively carried by AT&T in the United States. Sales of the new iPhone were nearly double those of the first iPhone model in the first 12 days the device was available. Because the iPhone didn’t go on sale until July 11, it isn’t part of the second quarter numbers. But AT&T did say that 40% of the buyers were new to the company, which should help third quarter numbers.
AT&T is still the largest U.S. wireless company, with 72.8 million subscribers but the number two company, Verizon Wireless, is a close second with 68.7 million customers.