By Harshita Mary Varghese
April 27 (Reuters) – Verizon raised its annual profit forecast on Monday after revamped customer offers and bundled plans led to surprise first-quarter wireless subscriber additions, sending its shares up 4%.
With deals such as offering better terms to customers who brought in bills from rivals like AT&T and T-Mobile, Verizon worked to draw in paying subscribers as part of a broader turnaround push to revive wireless growth.
Verizon added 55,000 monthly bill-paying wireless subscribers in the quarter, its first net gains for the March-ended period in more than a decade.
Analysts polled by Visible Alpha had expected wireless subscribers to decrease by 81,809.
“The strong postpaid phone net adds result shows that (CEO) Dan Schulman is here to fight tooth and nail,” analysts at New Street Research said.
“Anyone that doubted whether Verizon might achieve its guidance for the year should have no doubts after this quarter.”
Schulman, who took charge as CEO in October, said Verizon is in talks with hyperscalers, cloud providers and large enterprises to link its fiber and 5G assets to support AI infrastructure, with potential to generate billions in revenue.
The company now expects its total retail postpaid phone net additions for the year to be in the upper half of its forecast of 750,000 to 1 million.
Like AT&T, Verizon has leaned into discounted bundles combining high-speed broadband and wireless plans, a strategy aimed at boosting customer retention.
The company’s total quarterly revenue came in at $34.4 billion, compared with estimates of $34.84 billion, according to data compiled by LSEG.
Wireless service revenue growth for the quarter was impacted by customer credits tied to a January service outage that lasted for about 10 hours, for which Verizon offered a $20 credit to hundreds of thousands of customers.
Verizon now sees adjusted profit for 2026 between $4.95 and $4.99 per share, compared with its prior forecast of between $4.90 and $4.95.
For the first quarter, Verizon reported an adjusted profit of $1.28 per share, compared with estimates of $1.20.
(Reporting by Harshita Mary Varghese in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel)
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