Verizon Communications Q1 2025 Pre Recorded Earnings Report

Verizon Communications EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $1.19
• Consensus EPS: $1.15
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$0.04
• One Year Ago EPS: N/A

Verizon Communications Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $33.50 billion
• Expected Revenue: $33.31 billion
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$188.93 million
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

Verizon Communications Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q1 2025 Pre Recorded
• Date: 4/22/2025
• Time: Before Market Opens
• Conference Call Date: Monday, April 21, 2025
• Conference Call Time: 8:00PM ET

Verizon Communications (NYSE:VZ) is the US's largest provider of mobile and telephone services. It has its roots in the original Bell system and is one of only 3 “baby Bells” to exist today. The company was spun off from the original Bell network as Bell Atlantic when it was split into 7 companies in 1984. The original home range was from New Jersey to Virginia but, ironically, shortly after the split the baby bells, including Bell Atlantic, began to merge together in order to expand their territories.

Bell Atlantic acquired NYNEX, another baby Bell, in a move that expanded operations into New York and New England. MCI was also added, expanding the long-distance services, then the company acquired until-then independent operator GTE and became a national carrier. The company changed its name to Verizon following the GTE merger and it is a blend of the Latin word veritas which means Truth and Horizon.

Over the years, Verizon has expanded its territory and its offerings to include mobile, internet and entertainment. Among the more notable were the purchase and merging of AOL and Yahoo! which were later spun off in a sale to Apollo Global Management. Among the more important changes the company has made was to sell off its land-based wirelines. Verizon began selling off its land-based wirelines in 2005 in order to focus more fully on mobile and Internet technology.

Today, Verizon offers communications, information technology, and entertainment products to consumers globally. The company operates in 2 key segments that include Consumer and Business. The Consumer segment provides wireless connectivity, internet access for mobile devices, and wireless and mobile devices including those for the IoT. As of the end of the year 2021, the company laid claim to more than 143 million retail subscribers and was the largest mobile provider by almost 30%.

The Business segment provides connectivity at the enterprise level that includes mobile, networking, Internet access, VOIP and video, security and IoT. As of 2021, this segment had more than 27 million wireless and 477,000 broadband connections. Both the Consumer and Business segments are being upgraded to the 5G protocol. At the end of 2022 more than 175 million users were covered by the service.

Verizon is the US's 24th largest company by revenue and a member of both the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The company has paid a dividend every quarter since it went public in 2000 and had increased the payment for 18 consecutive years as of 2022.

Verizon Communications Q1 2025 Pre Recorded Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Robust Q1 financials: Wireless service revenue rose 2.7% to $20.8 B, adjusted EBITDA grew 4% to a record $12.6 B, and free cash flow jumped 34% to $3.6 B.
• Subscriber momentum: Combined postpaid and prepaid phone net adds improved with 137 K prepaid net adds, while broadband grew by 339 K (including 308 K FWA and 45 K FiOS additions).
• Innovative customer offerings: Launched a three-year price lock and free phone guarantee on MyPlan, rolled out MyBizPlan for SMEs, and expanded AI Connect and satellite text partnerships.
• Network leadership: C-band deployment is ahead of plan covering up to 90% of sites by year-end, 5G Advanced features are rolling out, and the network earned top ratings for speed and reliability.
• Strong financial discipline: Net unsecured debt improved by $11 B y/y to $115.1 B, supporting dividends, debt paydown, and future share repurchases with confidence in 2025 guidance.

Presentation

[Brady Connor, SVP, IR at Verizon]

Hello, and welcome to the discussion of our first quarter twenty twenty five results. I'm Brady Connor, and on this recording, you'll hear from our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Hans Vesperg as well as our Chief Financial Officer, Tony Sciatis. Before we begin, I'd like to draw your attention to our Safe Harbor statement, which can be found at the start of the earnings presentation posted on our Investor Relations website. Information in this presentation contains statements about expected future events and financial results that are forward looking and subject to risks and uncertainties. Discussions of factors that may affect future results is contained in Verizon's filings with the SEC, which are available on our Investor Relations website.

[Brady Connor, SVP, IR at Verizon]

This presentation contains certain non GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations of these non GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures are included in the financial materials posted on our website. Discussions and comments related to our 2025 guidance exclude any assumptions regarding the potential effects of the tariff environment, owing to the uncertain and evolving nature of these impacts. Materials related to this discussion were posted this morning to our Investor Relations website. Additionally, we hope you'll join the webcast of our discussion of the earnings results and business updates that starts at 08:30 a.

[Brady Connor, SVP, IR at Verizon]

M. Eastern Time today, April 22. With that, I'll turn it over to Hans.

[Hans Vestberg, Chairman & CEO at Verizon]

Thank you, Brady. Good morning, and welcome to our first quarter twenty twenty five earnings update. We had a very strong financial performance in the first quarter with continued execution of our long term strategy. Our results demonstrate the resilience of our business and our strategic advantage as a full service connectivity provider, driving financial growth despite changing market conditions. We delivered strong financial growth across all our key financial metrics in the first quarter.

[Hans Vestberg, Chairman & CEO at Verizon]

Wireless service revenue of $20,800,000,000 was up 2.7% year over year at the high end of our guided range. Adjusted EBITA grew 4% to $12,600,000,000 This is our best reported quarterly EBITA ever with the highest growth rate in nearly four years. Lastly, we delivered strong free cash flow of $3,600,000,000 up over $900,000,000 year over year, enabling continued execution of our capital allocation priorities. Our financial strength is notable considering the dynamic environment marked by broad macro uncertainties, market volatility and an evolving global trade landscape. We exited the quarter with positive sales momentum that has continued into April, and we remain confident in our ability to deliver on our 2025 financial guidance.

[Hans Vestberg, Chairman & CEO at Verizon]

We're actively monitoring the tariff developments and working closely with our strategic suppliers to effectively manage the potential impacts for our customers and shareholders, as we successfully did during the COVID-nineteen pandemic. Most importantly, our diverse portfolio of offerings serves all segments of the market and position us for a success in any economic environment. Let me highlight some of the strategic moves we made during the last twelve months that improve our ability to drive sustainable subscriber and financial growth while improving the customer experience. As part of our consumer transformation, we recently introduced a three year price lock and free phone guarantee for new and existing customers on MyPlan. We also launched MyBizPlan, which extends the same control, value and simplicity to our small and medium sized business customers.

[Hans Vestberg, Chairman & CEO at Verizon]

Our dedication to improving customer experience is reflected in our ongoing development of our customer first offerings and our brand refresh. We accelerated our broadband expansion plans by increasing our organic build pace and through the pending acquisition of Frontier. And we announced our AI Connect offerings to enable AI at scale and open up new revenue streams and executed on satellite partnership that enabled texting anywhere for free. Our network continues to be a key differentiator. The C band deployment remains ahead of plan and on track to cover 80% to 90% of our planned sites by year end.

[Hans Vestberg, Chairman & CEO at Verizon]

We are aggressively rolling out five gs advanced features and making the best five gs network even better. We're also tracking ahead of our Fios build plans and are on track to deliver 650,000 incremental passing this year. Our multi dwelling unit solution for fixed wireless access was recently launched in more than 50 markets and is expected to gradually ramp up over time. Lastly, we once again earned a top spot in the industry, claiming best five gs, fastest five gs and most reliable five in a 2024 RootMetrics second half drive test. Shifting to operational performance.

[Hans Vestberg, Chairman & CEO at Verizon]

The breadth of our product portfolio, which covers all market segments, delivered year over year improvement in our combined postpaid and prepaid phone net adds. We had a slow start on postpaid phone net adds, largely driven by elevated churn in consumer from our recent pricing actions and pressure from federal government accounts. We continue to execute on our multiyear business transformation effort in consumer and remain confident to deliver full year improvements in postpaid phone net adds. Our prepaid net adds of 137,000 were the best since the Tracfone acquisition and represent a significant year over year improvement. Our prepaid brands play a critical role in our segmented market strategy to ensure we have targeted offerings for all customers.

[Hans Vestberg, Chairman & CEO at Verizon]

In broadband, we continue to take share and grew our subscriber base with our dual fixed wireless access and fiber strategy, adding 339,000 subscribers in the quarter. With fixed wireless access and fiber, we have the most complete offering covering all segments of the market, and we will cover more than 100,000,000 premises over time. Our Fixed Wireless Access product continues to lead the broadband growth, and we have a great momentum to reach our next milestone, eight to 9,000,000 fixed wireless access subscribers by 2028. We're excited to expand our broadband opportunity and continue to scale upon closing of our pending Frontier acquisition. And our private network business continued to scale.

[Hans Vestberg, Chairman & CEO at Verizon]

We closed more than a dozen deals in the quarter, including private networks for AdventHealth and Nucor. We were named a leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for managed IoT connectivity services worldwide and reached an agreement to deliver a turnkey IoT solution for Atlanta Hawks. On AI Connect that we presented earlier in the year, we have seen accelerated interest and continued to expand our partner ecosystem. We have added hundreds of new opportunities to our funnel in the first quarter, including some very well known brands and seeing particular interest in our dark fiber and wave services. Looking ahead, we're confident in our strategy to drive sustainable subscriber and financial growth.

[Hans Vestberg, Chairman & CEO at Verizon]

Our innovative customer first offerings, along with the continuous improvements in our overall mobility performance, position us to grow our subscriber base as we progress through the year. Our growth areas such as broadband, private networks and AI Connect are scaling rapidly and are unlocking new revenue streams using our existing assets. Finally, our financial discipline is enabling successful execution of our capital allocation priorities, investing in the business for growth, supporting and growing our dividend paying down our debt and eventually executing on share repurchase. During periods of elevated uncertainty, our business has demonstrated remarkable strength and resilience when our differentiators and structural advantages become even more apparent, helping to protect our business and create durability in our financial performance. And with our buyers for action and our position of strength, we expect that we will not only weather the current environment, but we will thrive in it.

[Hans Vestberg, Chairman & CEO at Verizon]

Now I will turn over to Tony to discuss our results in greater detail.

[Tony Skiadas, CFO at Verizon]

Thanks, Hans, and good

[Tony Skiadas, CFO at Verizon]

morning. This quarter proved once again that our business is resilient. We provide essential products and remain confident in our full year guidance. The first quarter demonstrated our ability to drive strong financial results. We delivered wireless service revenue growth at the upper end of our guided range and our highest quarter of year over year adjusted EBITDA growth in almost four years.

[Tony Skiadas, CFO at Verizon]

Our customer segmentation strategy is working. This, together with strong execution, led to an improved combined postpaid and core prepaid phone net add performance from last year. We achieved this even with challenges in the federal government accounts and churn pressure in consumer postpaid. This pressure caused consumer postpaid phone churn to rise by seven basis points in the first quarter relative to last year. The increase is largely due to multiple pricing actions that were implemented over the past few months.

[Tony Skiadas, CFO at Verizon]

The collective pricing changes are anticipated to yield over $1,000,000,000 in incremental service revenue, allowing for greater operating flexibility for the rest of the year. Consumer postpaid phone net losses totaled $356,000 for the first quarter compared to $194,000 net losses in the prior year period. We exited the first quarter with positive momentum. Consumer postpaid phone gross adds in March were up mid single digits from the prior year, and the performance in April continues to be strong. We're encouraged by the operational trends we're seeing and are focused on driving mobility volume growth for the full year.

[Tony Skiadas, CFO at Verizon]

Our three year price lock and free phone guarantee is the next phase of our consumer transformation. This new offering was contemplated in our 2025 guidance and provides another example of our ability to innovate within the MyPlan platform. Turning to upgrades. The consumer postpaid upgrade rate was 3% in the first quarter, slightly lower than the prior year. We continue to see customers holding on to their phones for longer periods of time.

[Tony Skiadas, CFO at Verizon]

For the full year, we continue to expect upgrade activity to increase by mid single digits from 2024, reflecting an anticipated increase in volumes throughout the balance of the year. Our offers are resonating in the market. We remain confident that for the full year 2025, we will deliver year over year improvement in consumer postpaid phone net adds while maintaining our financial discipline. Verizon business delivered 67,000 phone net adds, down from 80,000 net adds in the prior year period. We continue to evolve our offerings to provide businesses with the network solutions they need.

[Tony Skiadas, CFO at Verizon]

We recently launched My Biz Plan, a new innovative plan structure that will better serve small and medium businesses with additional choice, value and flexibility. We remain confident that the team has the tools to execute effectively in the current environment, delivering strong volumes for the full year 2025. Now let me turn to our core prepaid results, where the improved performance more than offset the year over year change in total postpaid phone net adds. Core prepaid net additions were 137,000 for the quarter, an improvement of 268,000 from the prior year. Our strong execution and strategy to invest in the Straight Talk, Visible and Total Wireless brands continues to pay off.

[Tony Skiadas, CFO at Verizon]

All three brands are producing strong volume growth, helping us build a high quality customer base. Moving on to broadband. We delivered 339,000 net additions in the quarter. We're taking broadband share and see strong demand for both our fiber and fixed wireless access offerings. In fixed wireless access, we're off to a good start to the year and remain on track for our 8,000,000 to 9,000,000 FWA subscriber target by 2028.

[Tony Skiadas, CFO at Verizon]

We delivered 308,000 net adds for the quarter, growing the base to more than 4,800,000 subscribers. We see increased opportunity for expansion ahead as we further deploy our C band in more suburban and rural areas. Fios Internet net adds for the first quarter were 45,000 versus 53,000 in the prior year period. FiOS continues to be a best in class broadband solution with high levels of customer satisfaction, demonstrated by strong ARPU and continued low levels of churn. We're bringing Fios to more and more communities and are on track to reach 650,000 new passings this year.

[Tony Skiadas, CFO at Verizon]

The team is also working through the necessary steps to close the pending Frontier acquisition. We continue to expect the deal to close in early twenty twenty six. We have received regulatory approvals from several states and are continuing to work with federal and state level agencies. We're also working through integration planning efforts to ensure a smooth transition upon deal closing. Frontier plays an important role in Verizon's broadband strategy, and we're excited about expanding our fiber footprint and accelerating our broadband growth opportunities.

[Tony Skiadas, CFO at Verizon]

Looking at our financials. We had a very strong first quarter and maintain a high level of confidence in reaching our financial targets for 2025. Total wireless service revenue was $20,800,000,000 in the first quarter, up 2.7% year over year. We've taken several actions that have positioned us well for achieving service revenue growth throughout the year. Consumer ARPA of $146.46 in the first quarter represented an increase of 3.6% year over year.

[Tony Skiadas, CFO at Verizon]

This was primarily driven by pricing actions implemented over the past year. Additionally, the increased adoption of Perks and growth in Fixed Wireless Access subscribers continue to drive ARPA. Consolidated adjusted EBIT in the quarter was $12,600,000,000 which is the highest we've ever reported and an increase of 4% compared to the prior year period. The growth was fueled by wireless service revenue coupled with the benefits from cost savings initiatives. From a cost perspective, our voluntary separation program is now complete, and we are already realizing run rate savings, which will provide a benefit for the full year.

[Tony Skiadas, CFO at Verizon]

We continue to execute on cost efficiency initiatives to further improve the financial profile Adjusted EPS was $1.19 in the quarter, up 3.5% year over year, primarily due to the strength in adjusted EBITDA. Turning to our cash flow summary. Cash flow from operating activities for the first quarter was $7,800,000,000 an increase of nearly $700,000,000 over the prior year. The year over year growth in CFFO was primarily driven by the growth in adjusted EBITDA.

[Tony Skiadas, CFO at Verizon]

CapEx for the quarter came in at $4,100,000,000 compared to $4,400,000,000 in the prior year. Consistent with prior years, we expect the pace of capital expenditures to ramp as we get further into the year. We continue to find efficiencies with our C band deployment and Fios build out, allowing us to efficiently deliver more solutions within our capital envelope. Free cash flow was $3,600,000,000 in the first quarter, up over $900,000,000 or more than 34% from the prior year. Net unsecured debt at the end of the quarter was $115,100,000,000 an $11,000,000,000 improvement year over year.

[Tony Skiadas, CFO at Verizon]

This was higher by $1,400,000,000 sequentially, primarily due to noncash mark to market adjustments. Our net unsecured debt to consolidated adjusted EBITDA ratio was 2.3x at the end of the quarter, a 0.3x improvement year over year and in line with the prior quarter. Our balance sheet continues to be a key strength of our business. Of note, we have less than $700,000,000 in unsecured debt maturities remaining in 2025. This provides us with a clear pathway for meaningful debt reduction ahead of the closing of the Frontier transaction in alignment with our capital allocation strategy.

[Tony Skiadas, CFO at Verizon]

In summary, we are pleased with the financial performance of the business in the first quarter. We delivered strong wireless service revenue and adjusted EBITDA growth as well as free cash flow growth. We continue to deliver more value to our customers, including our recently launched three year price lock and free phone guarantee. The actions we've taken to improve our postpaid phone trends are starting to bear fruit. Core prepaid is continuing to perform well, and our broadband base continues to grow.

[Tony Skiadas, CFO at Verizon]

We have a recurring business that will remain resilient. Our strong financial results in the first quarter put Verizon in a position of strength to deliver better financial and customer growth in 2025. With that, I will turn the call back over to Hans.

[Hans Vestberg, Chairman & CEO at Verizon]

Thank you, Tony. I'm proud of our team's performance in this first quarter. We remain focused on our three key financial metrics: growing wireless service revenue expanding adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow. We look forward to sharing more about how we offer more value to our customers and continue to drive both financial and subscriber growth on our 08:30AM

[Hans Vestberg, Chairman & CEO at Verizon]

call

Participants

Executives

• Hans Vestberg, Chairman & CEO

Analysts

• Brady Connor, SVP, IR at Verizon
• Tony Skiadas, CFO at Verizon