Verizon reported its Q1 2013Â earnings today, including revenue for the quarter of $29.4B and EPS of $0.68. The results were mixed, topping expectations in terms of earnings per share, and falling slightly below prediction in terms of revenue estimates, according to Yahoo!’s analyst consensus.
Total revenues were up 4.2 percent from last year, where it reported $28.24 billion in the first fiscal quarter. EPS was up 15.3 percent from last year, when ti reported $0.59 per share. Verizon added 720,000 wireless customers during the first quarter of the year, for a total of 98.9 million customers, up from 98.2 million sequentially.
Verizon dedicated resources to launching Redbox Instant, which was in a beta trial period for most of the quarter before its launch in March. That likely put pressure on margins, while on the wireless side decreased subsidies on some mobile phones seem to have helped it improve the picture there. Wireline ARPU increased to $107.15 in Q1 2013 and wireless ARPA grew to $150.27 per month, up 6.9 percent year over year, and profit totalled $1.95 billion overall for the quarter.
A recent report suggested that Verizon recently made a bid for Clearwire spectrum leases of $1.5 billion, in an attempt to help it continue to push out its network expansion. Originally reported by the Wall Street Journal April 15, this is unlikely to have impacted the carrier’s earnings today, but could have a big future material impact on the business, as Verizon continues to snap up spectrum as it did in its deal with cable companies last year worth $3.9 billion.
FiOS continues to more than offset DSL subscriber losses in Verizon’s wireline business, the company said, and is looking to bring as many as 300,000 customers over to its fiber network away from legacy copper-based networks by the end of 2013. FiOS now reaches 17.8 million customers, reaching 38.2 percent of potential FiOS subscribers within reach of Verizon’s current network.
In its wireless business, Verizon reported a total of 7.2 million activations for smartphones during Q1, with 28 percent new customers. 5.9 million were LTE-capable devices, down from 7.3 million during the previous quarter. It’s a sequential drop-off, but one that’s in line with a quarter following the normally very busy holiday sales period.