Falling Q4 revs for Verizon but faith in TV remains
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Joseph O'Halloran
| 25 January 2017

For a period which CEO Lowell Adam said showed the company was positioning for future growth and continued sustainable shareholder value, US comms giant Verizon has reported a rather disappointing Q4 2016.

At the end of the three-month period ended 31 January 2016 Verizon’s total consolidated operating revenues in Q4 2016 were $32.3 billion, a 5.6% decrease compared with the corresponding period in 2015. Full-year 2016 revenues fell by 4.3% to nearly $126.0 billion. Net income was $4.6 billion for Q4 2016 with a net income margin of 14.2% while EBITDA totalled $12.0 billion, and the consolidated EBITDA margin (non-GAAP) was 37.1% for the quarter.

Yet even though total wireline revenues decreased 3.1% year-on-year to $7.8 billion, retail consumer revenues grew 0.2% to $3.2 billion, driven by consumer revenue growth for the FiOS fibre broadband service. Total FiOS revenues grew 4.4%, to $2.9 billion, compared with Q4 2015with fourth-quarter 201, taking full-year revenues to $11.2 billion, a 4.6% yearly increase.

For the fourth quarter, Verizon added a net of 68,000 FiOS Internet connections and 21,000 FiOS IPTV video subscribers, giving a 34.3% penetration. It added that customer demand for custom TV continued to remain strong and that by the end of the year it had totalled 5.7 million FiOS Internet connections and 4.7 million FiOS video connections.

Commenting on the fourth quarter results, and looking to the year to come, McAdam said: “We are positioning Verizon for future growth and continued sustainable shareholder value ... We enter 2017 with confidence, based on our investments in next-generation networks and the new capabilities we have acquired. Our goal is to continue to earn our customers’ loyalty every day in a rapidly expanding mobile-first digital world.”