The two U.S. bellwether communications conglomerates have reported their second quarter results, revealing industry trends. Collectively they lost 1.8 million access lines, but added 599K broadband (includes FTTH, DSL, and satellite broadband connections), 548K TV subscribers (includes only FiOS and U-Verse subscribers) and 2.23 million postpaid wireless subscribers. Some interesting observations of the two:
- Verizon appears to be executing better than AT&T with broadband, which may indicate an advantage for FTTH in the minds of customers., relative to broadband offerings.
- Verizon more than held their own against AT&T with wireless, despite AT&T’s ‘iPhone advantage.’ Which begs the question – where in the world would AT&T be without the iPhone?
- Verizon had a slight advantage over AT&T in net TV adds (52K additional). But at first glance, not a significant advantage, indicating consumers may not perceive superior value for a FTTH video product over a DSL video product in the same way they appear to be for a FTTH broadband product over DSL.
- Verizon (884K) and AT&T(921K) lost similar numbers of access lines, indicating, for the time being, the access line loss trend appears to be affecting them similarly.
These are just some quick observations, void of intense analysis. We’ll be offering more closely scrutinized analysis of these numbers in the weeks to come.