A day after Apple’s earnings were catapulted by iPhone sales, the device did pretty much the same for carrier AT&T (NYSE: T). The telco’s adjusted net income was up significantly—a $1 billion non-cash charge it attributed to the health care reform bill sent profits down by 19 percent in actual terms—and that was enough to beat analysts’ estimates. Still considering that it added 1.9 million wireless subscribers in the quarter—the highest quarterly total in company history, giving it 87 million subs in all—revenues were pretty lackluster, remaining virtually flat year-over-year. The company also signed on 2.7 million iPhone activations, with more than one-third of the activations for customers who were new to AT&T.
AT&T also said it added 512,000 postpaid subscribers, That was down from 897,000 the year before, but analysts had factored that in as well. Other highlights from the release:
—Revenue per monthly subscriber were up 10.3 percent, with postpaid subscriber revs up 3.9 percent—the fifth consecutive quarter with a year-over-year increase in postpaid ARPU
—3.3 million net increase in 3G postpaid integrated wireless devices on AT&T’s network to reach 26.8 million, more than double the company’s year-earlier total
—The AT&T U-verse TV wireline unit has tended to struggled, but it managed to experience a net gain of 231,000 subs in Q1 to reach 2.3 million users.
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