­USA based AT&T has announced third-quarter revenues that were largely flat with the previous year, at US$31.5 billion - while net profits were also flat at US$3.6 billion.

The company would have posted a 2.6% rise in revenues, when you exclude the disposal of its Advertising Solutions division.

Third-quarter 2012 cash from operating activities totaled $11.5 billion, a record for the company, and capital expenditures totaled $4.9 billion. Free cash flow - cash from operating activities minus capital expenditures - totaled $6.5 billion, also a record for the company.

Capital expenditures for the year are now expected to come in at the low end of the $19 to $20 billion range while still meeting network build targets.

AT&T posted a net increase in total wireless subscribers of 678,000 in the third quarter to reach 105.9 million in service. However, the company said that subscriber growth during the quarter was impacted by iPhone 5 inventory constraints which resulted in the vast majority of third-quarter iPhone sales going to existing customers, where there was considerable pent-up demand.

The company said that it saw strong smartphone sales of 6.1 million, of which 4.7 million were Apple iPhones. Smartphones now represent around 64% of its contract customer base.

"We had another impressive quarter with strong earnings growth, record cash flows and solid returns to shareholders through dividends and share buybacks", said Randall Stephenson, AT&T chairman and chief executive officer. "In wireless, we had another excellent smartphone quarter, penetration of usage-based mobile data plans continues to climb, and our 4G LTE network build is ahead of schedule. And in wireline, our IP network continues to deliver strong gains in U-verse high speed Internet connections, which helped drive an almost 10 percent increase in broadband data ARPU.