U-verse drops 22,000 subs
July 24, 2015
AT&T lost 22,000 U-verse TV subscribers in Q2, compared to 190,000 net adds in the same quarter a year ago.
The US telco, which ended Q2 with 5.97 million video subs, blamed typical “seasonality” over cord-cutting, alongside the decision to target promotions to more profitable, higher-value subscribers.
“On the U-verse video side, the first point to make is that the second quarter is always seasonally a challenge,” AT&T CFO John Stephens said. “You’ve got a lot of relocations; you’ve got a lot of students returning from college. And with our limited footprint with regard to video capabilities, it’s always a challenge for us.”
While U-verse video dropped off, U-verse high-speed Internet remained strong, as AT&T added 241,000 subs in that category, extending its total to 12.9 million subs. AT&T said more than 90 per cent of “IP-eligible subscribers” have its U-verse high-speed Internet product. With DSL factored in, AT&T lost a total of 136,000 broadband subs, widened from a loss of 55,000 last year.
Stephens said U-verse services now account for more than 70 per cent of consumer revenues, and that adjusted consumer U-verse revenues rose 19.2 per cent year-over-year. More than 97 per cent of AT&T’s video customers now take a bundle, and the ARPU for U-verse triple-play customers remains greater than $170.
Regarding the pending merger with DirecTV, Stephens reiterated that the company expects the deal to achieve $2.5 billion in cost synergies.