Verizon (NYSE: VZ) has released its fourth quarter results, as well as its full year results for 2007. In Q4 Verizon saw $23.8 billion in revenues, an increase of 5.5 percent year-on-year. Net income increased by 3.8 percent to $1.072 billion. Verizon Wireless saw revenue increase by 13.3 percent to $11.443 billion (I’m unsure if this has been adjusted to reflect Verizon’s partial ownership of the business), and income for the segment increased by 21.9 percent year-on-year to $990 million. Verizon Wireless saw 2.0 million net customer additions (1.9 million net retail customer additions) in the quarter, and now boasts 63.7 million retail customers. Retail ARPU for Q4 was $51.49. For the full year 2007 Verizon Wireless added 6.9 million retail customers. Churn was at 1.2 percent. For the full year 2007 Verizon saw $93.5 billion in total revenues, an increase of 6.0 percent over 2006. Verizon Wireless brought in $43.9 billion in revenue, an increase of 15.3 percent over 2006.
Data: Verizon Wireless had $7.4 billion in data revenues for the full year, an increase of 65 percent over 2006. In the fourth quarter data revenues accounted for 21.3 percent of all service revenues, up from 15.8 percent in the fourth quarter 2006. The company had 47.2 million retail data customers in December — 74 percent of the retail customer base and a 37 percent increase over the prior year. Retail data ARPU was $11.06 in Q4.
Earnings Call: In response to a question about the increasingly saturated US mobile market (and the possible reduction in the opportunity to “feast on Sprint”) President Denny Strigl said that Verizon expects to take a disproportionate share of the industry growth adds in the future. “Our focus has always been on the retail post-paid market, however we have seen more adds coming from the pre-paid market,” said Strigl. “Our ARPU has been driven in large part by growth in data ARPU…we will see strong data growth going forward into 2008.”
Verizon CFO Doreen Toben gave a very long and detailed account of exactly what she was looking at to determine if the current jitters in the economy would affect Verizon, with the answer being “it doesn’t look like it”. On the wireless side she looked at discretionary spending on things like ringtones.
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