AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) posted margin expansion and strong adjusted earnings growth with lower costs in the second quarter. Randall Stephenson, the CEO and Chairman, reported that once again their team delivered better consolidated margins and hence, adjusted earnings per share surged by almost 10% as they did well against their business priorities.
In a quarter where company’s peers launched promotions aggressively, they added over 500,000 branded smartphones to their base and over 100,000 IP broadband subscribers, recorded impressive EBITDA wireless margins and registered the lowest postpaid phone churn in their history. They continue to anticipate the Time Warner deal to complete by year-end and further advance the company.
The details
AT&T’s consolidated revenues for Q2 came at $39.8 billion compared to $40.5 billion in the same period, a year earlier, mainly due to drop in consumer mobility and legacy wireline services. Compared with performance for Q2 2016, operating expenses came at $32.5 billion compared to $34 billion in the same period, a year earlier. Operating income came at $7.3 billion compared to operating income of $6.6 billion; while operating income margin stood at 18.4% versus 16.2%.
Adjusting for amortization, merger and integration linked expenses and other items, AT&T’s operating income came at $8.6 billion compared to $8.1 billion while operating income margin surged 21.6% over the year-ago quarter.
Net income attributable to company in the second quarter was $3.9 billion compared with $3.4 billion, in the year-ago quarter. Adjusting for costs for amortization, merger and integration linked expenses and other items, EPS came at $0.79 as against an adjusted EPS of $0.72 in the same period, a year earlier.
AT&T reported that cash from operating activities stood at $8.9 billion in the reported quarter and $18.2 billion in the first six months of the year. Capital expenditures came at $5.2 billion in the second quarter and it stood at $11.2 billion in the 1H2017.