Verizon today said there will be no revision in Capex (capital expenditures) for 2015.
Capex of Verizon will be between $17.5 billion and $18 billion.
Verizon said its revenues rose 6.9 percent to $22.3 billion in the first quarter of 2015. Verizon service revenues dipped 0.4 percent to $17.9 billion, while equipment revenues grew $1.5 billion compared with first-quarter 2014 as more customers chose Verizon Edge pricing.
Service revenues plus Edge installment billings increased 3.1 percent. Verizon said the percentage of phone activations on the Edge program was 39 percent against 25 percent in Q4 2014. The company expects this percentage, which is currently approaching 50 percent, to continue to increase.
Verizon Wireless said retail postpaid net additions grew 4.8 percent to 565,000. In Q1 2015, Verizon retail connections rose 5.1 percent to 108.6 million. Verizon has 102.6 million retail postpaid connections.
The company added 621,000 4G smartphones to its customer base. 3G smartphones declined, said Verizon. The company added 820,000 4G tablets and reported net declines of 385,000 basic phones and 188,000 prepaid devices.
4G devices now constitute approximately 70 percent of the retail postpaid connections base, up from 49 percent a year ago – with the 4G LTE network handling about 86 percent of total wireless data traffic.
Average data usage of Verizon increased 54 percent.
Verizon’s wireline segment revenue rose 4 percent — driven by FiOS fiber-optic broadband services.
Wireline consumer revenues rose 4 percent to $4 billion, with FiOS revenues representing 78 percent of the total.
FiOS revenues grew 10.2 percent to $3.4 billion. Verizon has added 133,000 new FiOS Internet connections and 90,000 net new FiOS Video connections. Verizon had totals of 6.7 million FiOS Internet and 5.7 million FiOS Video connections, representing increases of 9.4 percent and 7.9 percent, respectively.
FiOS Internet penetration was 41.5 percent compared with 39.7 percent. FiOS Video penetration was 36.0 percent against 35 percent.
Broadband connections grew 2.4 percent to 9.2 million. Net broadband connections increased by 41,000 in first-quarter 2015, as FiOS Internet net additions more than offset declines in DSL-based High Speed Internet connections.
Verizon migrated 47,000 customers who had been using copper connections, toward a full-year goal of 200,000.
Baburajan K
editor@telecomlead.com
