moblie65 2008-7-24 17:29
AT&T profit up 30% in Q2, matching expectations
(Associated Press via NewsEdge) AT&T's second-quarter financial results indicated that the weak economy is catching up to the largest telecommunications company in the US, but investors were largely satisfied with what they saw.
AT&T stock has been hammered in the last few months by the expectation that economy-conscious consumers would pressure profits.
The latest results affirmed that, as the company slightly missed analysts' revenue expectations and reported an accelerating loss of landline subscribers.
However, investors were apparently expecting worse, and sent AT&T's shares up $1.58, or 5%, to $33.40 in afternoon trading.
AT&T said sales of Apple's second-generation iPhone, for which it is the exclusive US carrier, were nearly double those of the first iPhone model in the first 12 days the device was available.
The latest iPhone went on sale July 11, after the end of the second quarter on June 30, so those sales are not part of the financial results reported Wednesday. AT&T said 40 % of buyers were new to the company.
AT&T earned $3.77 billion in the quarter, up 30% from $2.90 billion in the same period a year ago.
Revenue rose 4.7% to $30.9 billion. Analysts expected $31.1 billion in revenue, according to Thomson.
The company, which recently moved its headquarters from San Antonio to Dallas, ended the quarter with 58.9 million phone lines in service, down 2.6% from 60.4 million three months earlier. That's a faster decline that many analysts had expected.