Verizon Communications Inc., the nation's second largest telecommunications company, reported better than expected third-quarter profit and sales on Monday.
However overall earnings fell by a third from last year due to tax charges.
Verizon, a joint venture of Verizon and Vodafone Group PLC , earned $1.27 billion, or 44 cents per share, in the July-September period, down 34 percent from $1.92 billion, or 66 cents per share, a year earlier.
The figure includes a charge of 16 cents per share for taxes related to a minority investment in Italian cell-phone carrier Vodafone Omnitel, and three cents per share in other charges.
Sales climbed 5.8 percent to $23.8 billion, exceeding the average estimate of $23.7 billion.
Revenue came to $23.8 billion in the latest quarter, up 5.8 percent from $22.5 billion a year ago.
Excluding tax expenses from a joint venture, profit was 63 cents a share, topping the 62-cent average whilst net income dropped 34 percent on the tax cost.
Closing the gap
Last year's earnings figure includes a number of businesses that have since been sold or spun-off, including the high-margin Yellow Pages business.
Excluding those businesses, earnings in last year's second quarter was 53 cents per
share.
Verizon's major growth driver, the cell-phone operations, added 1.6 million customers, for a total of 63.7 million, just behind AT&T Inc.'s 65.7 million.
While Verizon has generally been slowly closing the gap with its AT&T, Verizon's rival pulled ahead this quarter with an assist from Apple Inc.'s iPhone, for which it is the exclusive carrier.
October 29 2007
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