Earnings

Verizon earnings: Store closures hit hard

Verizon
  • Q1 revenue: $31.6 billion (-1.6% YoY ,-9.2% QoQ, vs. $32.38 billion expected)
  • Q1 earnings: $4.3 billion (-16.9% YoY, -15.9% QoQ, above expectations)
  • Full-year guidance: Verizon withdrew its revenue guidance and reduced its earnings guidance: It now expects earnings growth of between -2% and 2%.

The big number: Verizon lost 525,000 wireless retail postpaid customers last quarter, which it attributed to the shutdown of most of its retail locations.

People are talking: "We will emerge from this crisis stronger, knowing we provided critical connectivity to our customers," said Hans Vestberg.

Opportunities: Verizon's business segment performed better than the consumer segment, citing higher demand in March as companies moved to remote working.

Threats: Verizon was hit particularly hard between March 15 and April 15 as the coronavirus crisis worsened. The company reported a 49% drop in consumer wireless gross adds year-on-year, although "global enterprise, public sector and other" customer additions increased 163% year-on-year.

The power struggle: Verizon has spent recent years trying to position itself as a media business, but that's made it vulnerable to ad revenue declines. Although Verizon reported monthly active users up 22% year-on-year between March 15 and April 15, it said ad and search revenue is declining.

 Shakeel Hashim

Shakeel Hashim ( @shakeelhashim) is a growth manager at Protocol, based in London. He was previously an analyst at Finimize covering business and economics, and a digital journalist at News UK. His writing has appeared in The Economist and its book, Uncommon Knowledge.

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