AT&T Reaches 231,000 U-verse TV Subs
Telco On Track to Hit 1 Million By End of 2008
By Todd Spangler -- Multichannel News, 1/24/2008 4:02:00 AM
AT&T had 231,000 U-verse TV subscribers at the end of 2007, up 83% from 126,000 three months earlier, and claimed it’s on track to reach 1 million subscribers by the close of this year.
The telco said its U-verse TV weekly install rate in mid-December was approximately 12,000, beating a year-end target of 10,000 per week.
“The ramp in our AT&T U-verse TV service accelerated, and we are on track to reach more than 1 million subscribers by the end of 2008,” AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson said in announcing the company’s year-end earnings.
The year-end 2007 numbers make AT&T one of the top 20 video service providers in the U.S., according to figures compiled by the National Cable & Telecommunications Association. If AT&T tops the 1 million plateau, it would break into the top 10.
Last month, AT&T announced it would extend its U-verse buildout to include nine Southeast states – the former BellSouth territory – with plans to reach 30 million living units in 22 states by the end of 2010.
For the fourth quarter of 2007, AT&T’s growth in total video connections, including satellite services provided by DirecTV and Dish Network, increased by 235,000 to 2.3 million. In 2007 AT&T’s total video connections advanced 55.4%; at year-end, 7.6% of AT&T's primary consumer lines had a video solution from AT&T, up from 4.6% one year prior. AT&T has said it will stop reselling DirecTV service in the former BellSouth region in favor of Dish in the first quarter of 2008.
For the quarter ended Dec. 31, AT&T reported revenues of $30.3 billion and net income of $3.1 billion, on the strength of “record wireless gains.” AT&T posted a net gain of 2.7 million wireless subscribers, a 13.5% increase from 2.4 million net adds in the year-earlier fourth quarter. The growth was driven by retail postpaid net adds, AT&T said, along with its acquisition of Dobson Communications, which added 1.7 million subscribers. AT&T ended the year with 70.1 million wireless subscribers.
Stephenson, at a financial conference earlier this month, said that wireless telephony -- not wireline service -- will anchor AT&T’s triple-play bundle of the future, and that the company will be more aggressive this year in promoting bundles that include wireless phone service.
AT&T said merger synergies with BellSouth are ahead of its original outlook, with cost savings for 2007 from BellSouth and AT&T merger integration initiatives totaling approximately $4.0 billion.
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