Verizon Communications Q1 2025 Pre Recorded Earnings Results & 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
• EPS Beat Rate: 7 of last 8 quarters

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 (NYSE:VZ) is a telecommunications company headquartered in New York City and listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol VZ. The company was formed in 2000 through the merger of Bell Atlantic and GTE and has developed into one of the largest communications providers in the United States.

Verizon’s consumer business provides wireless voice and data services, smartphones and other connected devices, home internet, broadband, and related communications products. Its offerings include mobile connectivity, fixed wireless access, fiber-optic broadband through Fios in selected markets, and digital services for households and individual customers.

Through its business operations, Verizon serves companies, government agencies, and other organizations with wireless connectivity, networking, cloud and edge services, unified communications, cybersecurity, managed services, and Internet of Things solutions. While its consumer network and most retail operations are concentrated in the United States, Verizon also supports multinational customers through enterprise communications and technology services in international markets.

Verizon Communications Q1 2025 Pre Recorded Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Verizon reported wireless service revenue up 2.7% to $20.8 billion, adjusted EBITDA up 4% to $12.6 billion (its highest quarterly EBITA ever), and free cash flow rose to $3.6 billion, exceeding prior‐year results.
• The company rolled out a three‐year price lock with a free phone guarantee for MyPlan customers and launched MyBizPlan to simplify offerings for small and medium businesses.
• Broadband momentum continued with 339,000 net adds—308,000 via fixed wireless access (bringing the base to 4.8 million) and 45,000 Fios adds—while the pending Frontier acquisition aims to accelerate fiber expansion.
• Consumer postpaid phone net losses widened to 356,000 (from 194,000) and churn rose seven basis points, driven by recent pricing actions and federal account pressures.
• Verizon’s balance sheet strengthened with net unsecured debt down $11 billion year-over-year to $115.1 billion, a net debt/EBITDA ratio of 2.3x, and less than $700 million in 2025 maturities.

Presentation

[Brady Connor, VP of Investor Relations at Verizon]

Hello and welcome to the discussion of our first quarter 2025 results. I'm Brady Connor, and on this recording you'll hear from our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Hans Vestberg, as well as our Chief Financial Officer, Tony Skiadas. 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 are contained in Verizon's filings with the SEC, which are available on our Investor Relations website. 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.

[Brady Connor, VP of Investor Relations at Verizon]

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 8:30 A.M. Eastern Time today, April 22nd. With that, I'll turn it over to Hans.

[Hans Vestberg, Chairman and CEO at Verizon]

Thank you, Brady. Good morning and welcome to our first quarter 2025 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. Wireless service revenue of $20.8 billion was up 2.7% year-over-year at the high end of our guided range. Adjusted EBITDA grew 4% to $12.6 billion. This is our best reported quarterly EBITDA ever, with the highest growth rate in nearly four years. Lastly, we delivered strong free cash flow of $3.6 billion, up over $900 million year-over-year, enabling continued execution of our capital allocation priorities.

[Hans Vestberg, Chairman and CEO at Verizon]

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. 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-19 pandemic. Most importantly, our diverse portfolio of offerings serves all segments of the market and positions us for success in any economic environment. Let me highlight some of the strategic moves we made during the last 12 months that improve our ability to drive sustainable subscriber and financial growth while improving the customer experience.

[Hans Vestberg, Chairman and CEO at Verizon]

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 My Biz Plan, which extends the same control, value, and simplicity to our small and medium-sized business customers. 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. We announced our AI Connect offerings to enable AI at scale and open up new revenue streams, and executed on satellite partnerships that enable 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 80-90% of our planned sites by year-end.

[Hans Vestberg, Chairman and CEO at Verizon]

We are aggressively rolling out 5G advanced features and making the best 5G network even better. We're also tracking ahead of our Fios build plans and are on track to deliver 650,000 incremental passings this year. Our multi-dwelling unit solution for Fixed Wireless Access was recently launched in more than 15 markets and is expected to gradually ramp up over time. Lastly, we once again earned a top spot in the industry, claiming best 5G, fastest 5G, and most reliable 5G in the 2024 RootMetrics second half drive test. Shifting to operation performance, 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.

[Hans Vestberg, Chairman and CEO at Verizon]

We continue to execute on our multi-year 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. In broadband, we continue to take share and grow 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 million premises over time.

[Hans Vestberg, Chairman and CEO at Verizon]

Our Fixed Wireless Access product continues to lead the broadband growth, and we have great momentum to reach our next milestone, 8-9 million 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. Our private network business continues to scale. 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.

[Hans Vestberg, Chairman and CEO at Verizon]

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. 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.

[Hans Vestberg, Chairman and CEO at Verizon]

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. With our bias for action and our position of strength, we expect that we will not only weather the current environment, but we will thrive in it. Now, I will turn over to Tony to discuss our results in greater detail.

[Tony Skiadas, EVP and CFO at Verizon]

Thanks, Hans, and good 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. 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, EVP and CFO at Verizon]

The collective pricing changes are anticipated to yield over $1 billion 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. 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.

[Tony Skiadas, EVP and CFO at Verizon]

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. 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, EVP and 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 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 offsets 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. 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.

[Tony Skiadas, EVP and CFO at Verizon]

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 8-9 million FWA subscriber target by 2028. We delivered 308,000 net adds for the quarter, growing the base to more than 4.8 million 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, EVP and 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 2026. We have received regulatory approvals from several states and are continuing to work with federal and state-level agencies. We are 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. Looking at our financials, we had a very strong first quarter and maintained a high level of confidence in reaching our financial targets for 2025. Total wireless service revenue was $20.8 billion 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.

[Tony Skiadas, EVP and CFO at Verizon]

Consumer ARPA of $146.46 in the first quarter represented an increase of 3.6% year-over-year. 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 EBITDA in the quarter was $12.6 billion, 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. We continue to execute on cost efficiency initiatives to further improve the financial profile of the business. Adjusted EPS was $1.19 in the quarter, up 3.5% year-over-year, primarily due to the strength in adjusted EBITDA.

[Tony Skiadas, EVP and CFO at Verizon]

Turning to our cash flow summary, cash flow from operating activities for the first quarter was $7.8 billion, an increase of nearly $700 million over the prior year. The year-over-year growth in CFFO was primarily driven by the growth in adjusted EBITDA. CapEx for the quarter came in at $4.1 billion, compared to $4.4 billion 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 $3.6 billion in the first quarter, up over $900 million, or more than 34% from the prior year. Net unsecured debt at the end of the quarter was $115.1 billion, an $11 billion improvement year-over-year.

[Tony Skiadas, EVP and CFO at Verizon]

This was higher by $1.4 billion sequentially, primarily due to non-cash mark-to-market adjustments. Our net unsecured debt to consolidated adjusted EBITDA ratio was 2.3 times at the end of the quarter, a 0.3 times 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 million 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. In summary, we're 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.

[Tony Skiadas, EVP and CFO at Verizon]

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. 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 and 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, and 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 8:30 A.M. call.

Participants

Executives

• Hans Vestberg, Chairman and CEO

Analysts

• Tony Skiadas, EVP and CFO at Verizon
• Brady Connor, VP of Investor Relations at Verizon