Verizon increased wireless revenue nearly 6% year-over-year and added broadband subscribers in the fourth quarter of 2022, the company announced in its quarterly earnings release today.
Total wireless service revenue grew 5.9% compared to the fourth quarter of 2021, driven by the company’s highest total retail postpaid phone net additions in seven years. Wireless revenues were $18.8 billion.
Full-year 2022 wireless service revenue increased 8.6% from 2021. The results for both fourth-quarter 2021 and full-year 2021 included a partial contribution from the acquisition of TracFone, which was completed in November 2021.
Consumer wireless service revenue was $61.5 billion for 2022, an increase of 9.6 percent from full-year 2021. According to Verizon, this increase was driven by “premium adoption, overall postpaid connection growth, pricing actions that were implemented beginning in June 2022 and the inclusion of TracFone results.”
Fixed Wireless Drives Broadband Gains
Total broadband net additions of 416,000 during the fourth quarter of 2022 reflected the best total broadband performance in over a decade, which the company credited to a strong demand for Fios and fixed wireless products. Fixed wireless played a much bigger role than Fios did, however.
Verizon broadband results included 379,000 fixed wireless net additions, an increase of 37,000 fixed wireless net additions from the previous quarter 2022. Full-year 2022 total broadband net additions were 1,290,000, an increase from 409,000 total broadband net additions in full-year 2021.
A few other important figures from the fourth quarter earnings report:
- Full-year 2022 earnings per share (EPS) of $5.06, compared with $5.32 in 2021; adjusted EPS, excluding special items, of $5.18, compared with 2021 adjusted EPS of $5.50.
- Total operating revenue of $136.8 billion in full-year 2022, up 2.4% from 2021.
The positive figures came out just after J.D. Power announced that Verizon had dominated the research firm’s performance ratings.
“We delivered on the operational expectations and financial targets that we set in the second half of 2022,” Hans Vestberg, Verizon chairman and CEO, said in a prepared statement. “We are rapidly building out our C-Band spectrum with the most aggressive network deployment in our company’s history and are well positioned to improve and accelerate our performance. Wireless mobility and nationwide broadband will be two of the most significant contributors to our growth for the next several years.”
Not everyone was impressed by Verizon’s results, however. Financial analysts at MoffettNathanson argued that the wireless growth came at the expense of profit margin.
