USA based AT&T has announced that its first-quarter revenues rose by 1.8% to reach US$31.8 billion, while net profit also rose to US$3.6 billion from US$3.4 billion a year ago.
Compared with results for the first quarter of 2011, operating expenses were $25.7 billion versus $25.4 billion; operating income was $6.1 billion, up from $5.8 billion; and operating income margin was 19.2 percent, compared to 18.6 percent.
Total wireless revenues, which include equipment sales, were up 5.4 percent year over year to $16.1 billion. Wireless service revenues increased 4.3 percent, to $14.6 billion, in the first quarter. Wireless data revenues increased by more than $1 billion, or 19.9 percent, from the year-earlier quarter to $6.1 billion. First-quarter wireless operating expenses totaled $11.7 billion, up 3.4 percent versus the year-earlier quarter, and wireless operating income was $4.4 billion, up 11.3 percent year over year.
AT&T's first-quarter wireless operating income margin was 27.2 percent versus 25.8 percent in the year-earlier quarter, and AT&T's wireless EBITDA service margin was 41.6 percent, compared with 39.0 percent in the first quarter of 2011.
AT&T posted a net increase in total wireless subscribers of 726,000 in the first quarter to reach 103.9 million in service. This included gains in every customer category. Subscriber additions for the quarter include postpaid net adds of 187,000. Prepaid net adds were 125,000, connected device net adds were 230,000 and reseller net adds were 184,000. First-quarter net adds reflect continued adoption of smartphones and sales of tablets.
AT&T sold 5.5 million smartphones, exceeding a first-quarter sales record set last year. Smartphones represented more than 78 percent of postpaid device sales. At the end of the quarter, 59.3 percent, or 41.2 million, of AT&T's postpaid subscribers had smartphones, up from 46.2 percent and 31.5 million a year earlier. About 30 percent of AT&T's postpaid smartphone customers use a LTE-capable device.
In the quarter, the company activated 4.3 million iPhones, with 21 percent new to AT&T.
