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Tag Archives: Verizons
Verizon’s shares hit 10-year low on Friday following release of Q3 results
The largest wireless carrier in the U.S. learned a little about basic economics during the third quarter. After raising the administrative charge for postpaid subscribers by $1.35 to $3.30 per voice line, the number of consumer postpaid phone subscribers declined by 189,000 on a year-over-year basis during the third quarter with a churn rate of .88%. The churn is the percentage of subscribers (sometimes in a specific category) that leave a carrier for another and it rose in the quarter due to the higher administrative charge.
53% of Verizon’s consumer subscribers own a 5G capable handset
In the consumer sector, close to 53% of Verizon’s postpaid wireless phone subscribers owned a 5G capable handset during Q3. While the carrier has had to deal with higher infrastructure costs due to the seemingly never-ending 5G rollout, pricing has to be closely monitored thanks to the tough competition between Verizon, T-Mobile, and AT&T. And later this year, Boost expects to launch its Infinite service that will provide 5G service in the U.S. at a lower price than the big three.
53% of Verizon’s consumer subscribers have a 5G phone
On the business side, Verizon added 197,000 net new postpaid phone subscribers during the three months. This allowed it to record its fifth consecutive quarter with at least 150,000 net new postpaid phone subscribers in its business unit. The churn rate for the business sector’s postpaid phone business was 1.10%. Revenue for the Business Wireless group was up 5.7% on an annual basis to $3.3 billion. The increase is due to higher pricing and growth in the customer base.
Combining both the consumer and business units, the number of postpaid net new phone subscribers during the quarter added up to 8,000. That was well below Wall Street estimates calling for Verizon to add a total of 35,000 net new postpaid phone subscribers during the quarter.
Verizon Chairman and CEO Hans Vestberg said, “We took a number of actions in the third quarter that helped drive improved operational and financial performance, but we know there’s still more work to be done. The pricing actions we took earlier this year, as well as our new cost savings program, show that we are being deliberate and strategic in our decisions to strengthen our business. At the same time, we are focused on executing our 5G strategy, as we are covering every major market and accelerating our C-Band network build. We are on track to reach 200 million POPs within first-quarter 2023.”
Meanwhile, Verizon Chief Financial Officer Matt Ellis blamed higher plan pricing for the disconnections on the consumer side and said that “the pressure” would continue into the fourth quarter. Wall Street analysts weighed in with their comments. “The thing people forget is the biggest company in the industry, they have the most customers to lose each quarter,” said Michael Hodel, director of telecom and media research at Morningstar.
Ellis also said that “The actions we have taken in the previous two quarters are gaining traction in the marketplace. We expect that we will be able to build on this momentum into the future. Our financial discipline, combined with our healthy balance sheet, enabled us to increase our dividend for a 16th consecutive year, which is the longest current streak of dividend increases in the U.S. telecom industry.
Verizon shares hit their lowest price in over a decade
Overall, Verizon reported third-quarter revenue of $34.2 billion, up 4% over the gross collected during the same quarter last year. Net income of $5.02 billion was down 23.3% from the $6.55 billion in net income it reported during the 2021 third quarter. Diluted earnings per share declined 24.5% from $1.55 during last year’s third quarter to $1.17 in this year’s third quarter.
Verizon did have a pre-tax loss of $881 million that included adjusting pension liabilities to reflect current securities pricing and the adjustment of certain assets related to the TracFone acquisition.
Meanwhile, investors sent Verizon’s shares down $1.65 or 4.5% on Friday to $35.35. The day’s low, $34.55, was the lowest price for the stock in over ten years. The 52-week high is $55.51 (which seems so far away) and the 52-week low is the $34.55 nadir reached on Friday.
Verizon’s phone contracts are all three years now
If you’re looking to buy a new phone at Verizon, you now only have two options: buy the device outright, or pay monthly installments for three years. As reported by Droid Life (via Android Police), Verizon appears to have gotten rid of its 24- and 30-month contracts for all devices — including phones, hot spots, and smartwatches — and has instead extended it to 36 months.
Verizon’s payment program FAQ page explains that there isn’t any interest attached to the 36-month plan, and you can choose to pay off the phone in full whenever you want. What you can’t do, however, is pay more than your set monthly installment — so unless you can pay off the entire device, you’re locked into the three-year plan. If you’ve agreed to a 24- or 30-month plan before February 3rd, 2022, Verizon says you won’t be affected by this change.
As phones get more expensive, with more than a few crossing into $1,000 territory, it’s no longer uncommon for us to want to hold onto our smartphones for several years. Plus, a number of phone manufacturers still roll out updates several years after a phone’s release, killing the urge to upgrade our devices (at least for some of us). As a bit of a recap, Samsung phones get security updates for four additional years, Apple provides updates on devices for five to seven years, and Google offers updates on the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro for five years. But not all phone companies are so generous (looking at you, Motorola), so you might want to look into your phone’s software update policy before you’re locked into a three-year contract.
That said, it’s unclear when exactly Verizon shifted towards longer contracts, but it seems like it’s a little late to the game. AT&T has already gotten on board with the idea, as the company started offering just three-year contracts last year. And while T-Mobile started experimenting with the idea of 36-month plans in 2018, it has since gone back to offering only 24- or 30-month plans.
Some of Verizon’s Visible cell network customers say they’ve been hacked
Some customers of Verizon’s Visible service are using social media to say that hackers have accessed their accounts, changed their information to lock them out, and in some cases even ordered phones using their payment info (via XDA). If you’re not familiar, Visible is a cell service owned and operated by Verizon that pitches itself as a less expensive, “all-digital” network, meaning there aren’t any physical stores like you’d get with a traditional carrier. Starting on Monday, customers on both Twitter and Reddit reported en masse that they’d been getting emails from the company about changed passwords and addresses, and that they’ve had difficulties contacting the company’s chat support.
Visible’s customer service account on Twitter seemingly hasn’t addressed the issue, besides directing upset customers to its DMs. A user marked as a Visible employee on the subreddit posted a statement on Monday afternoon, saying that a “small number” of accounts were affected, but that the company didn’t believe its systems had been breached. The statement did recommend that users change their passwords, but as many commenters pointed out (and as I can confirm), the password reset system currently isn’t working. Verizon didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from The Verge.
I’m a Visible customer myself (I switched from T-Mobile for reasons unrelated to its recent massive data breach, but am very thrilled to possibly have been double-owned) and so far my account doesn’t seem to be compromised. I’m able to log in online and make sure my order history doesn’t have anything untoward, and opening the app is working like normal (though I received a few errors earlier in the day). I haven’t received any emails, texts, or other communications from the company regarding this situation.
Without much official word from the company, it’s hard to say exactly how the reported breaches happened, and what any potential hackers have access to — though we’ll keep you updated if we hear back. With many security breaches, the advice is to change your password and make sure you have two-factor authentication turned on, but Visible currently doesn’t support 2FA. Hopefully, incidents like this where some customers are seeing $1,000-plus charges on their credit cards from Visible may make that feature a higher priority.