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AT&T's earnings soar 61%
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More from BusinessSAN ANTONIO (AP) — AT&T Inc.'s earnings jumped 61 percent in the second quarter, driven mostly by its acquisition of BellSouth Corp., but also boosted by new wireless subscribers and better sales to large business customers.
The nation's largest provider of broadband Internet and land and wireless phone services said Tuesday that 146,000 subscribers activated new iPhones in the first 30 hours of sales as the quarter closed — news that seemed to disappoint Apple Inc. investers a day ahead of that company's earnings release.
For the quarter that ended June 30, AT&T said net income rose to $2.9 billion, or 47 cents per share, from $1.81 billion, or 46 cents per share, in the prior year's quarter. Wireless subscribers rose by 1.5 million to 63.7 million, AT&T said.
A tiny amount of that growth was driven by the iPhone introduction, with more than 40 percent of the early iPhone activations done by new AT&T subscribers. Sales continue to be strong in July, the company said.
AT&T shares closed down Tuesday 35 cents to $39.68 on a day of up-and-down trading. Apple shares dropped $8.81, or 6 percent, to $134.89.
Excluding acquisition costs, AT&T had earnings of 70 cents, up from 58 cents per share for the same three months last year and above the 67 cents average estimate of analysts polled by Thomson Financial.
Revenue for the quarter was $29.5 billion, up from $15.8 billion in the year-earlier quarter.
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