AT&T (NYSE: T) today said that Q307 revenues nearly doubled to $30.1 billion, up from $15.6 billion in the same period a year ago (the latter did not include its acquisition of BellSouth, which was completed at the end of December 2006), with net income of $3.1 billion versus $2.2 billion in Q306.
— Mobile: AT&T’s association with Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) is clearly paying off in terms of subscribers. Yesterday Apple reported 1.1 million customers for the iPhone, which is being sold exclusively with AT&T calling plans; in total the operator had a net gain of 2 million mobile customers in the quarter, representing growth of 46.8 percent, which it says is the highest increase in its history. AT&T now has 65.7 million subscribers, making it the largest wireless operator in the U.S. Revenues in the wireless division were $10.9 billion, up 14.4 percent from the year-earlier quarter. Wireless service revenues, excluding handset and accessory sales, grew 13.7 percent to $9.9 billion.
— Mobile data services: Wireless data revenues grew by 63.9 percent compared to Q306. AT&T cited both consumer and business data usage for the rise. Services with heavy use included messaging, media bundles, laptop connectivity, smart phone connectivity and enterprise vertical market solutions.
— Broadband, other content services: AT&T says its U-verse IPTV service is following its growth target of picking up 10,000 users per week; it now has 126,000 subscribers in all. Combined with its resale offering of satellite-based television broadcast service, total video connections grew by 215,000 in the quarter to 2.1 million. There is lots of room for growth still: AT&T says that only 6.7 percent of its total consumer base is currently receiving its video services. In broadband, which includes DSL, AT&T U-verse high speed Internet and satellite broadband services, the company picked up 499,000 users in the quarter to reach 13.8 million, up 2.2 million, or 18.6 percent, over the past year.
Conference Call: Company CFO Rick Lindner spent much of the company’s call making the argument that despite the company’s rapid growth in wireless revenue, the game is still early. “Only 35 percent of post-paid subscribers are on monthly wireless data plans,” said Lindner, adding that data ARPU for 3G users is double that of 2G users. Although the iPhone operates on the 2G network, the device was mentioned along with the new AT&T Tilt and the Blackberry 8820 as devices that would help drive increased data consumption. On the iPhone, the company has now signed up 1.1 million users, though Lindner insisted that there’s more to the story than just that device. Further highlighting this point: The iPhone isn’t mentioned at all in the company’s earnings release, unlike last quarter. Another interesting point:
700Mhz Auction: In response to a question about future cash flows, Lindner mentioned mergers and the upcoming 700Mhz auction as items that would likely impact this measure going forward.
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