AT&T figures just proved pretty conclusively that what little weakness it suffered in the last quarter of 2008 has pretty much gone away. Revenues were $30.6 billion versus $30.7 billion in the year-earlier quarter, and first-quarter 2009 net income was $3.1 billion versus $3.5 billion a year-earlier.
But when you get down to performance in acquiring customers the iPhone is all over AT&T’s figures and in total it acquired another 1.2 million wireless subscribers in the quarter to reach 78.2 million in service, and showed strong post paid subscriber gains and a big 38.6% leap in data revenue. Another 1.6 million Apple 3G iPhones were activated in the quarter, 40% of them new to AT&T, and they were probably largely responsible for much of that data growth, although AT&T talks about all phones with Qwerty keyboards or virtual Qwerty keyboards being extremely strong, so smartphones in general. No wonder AT&T is looking at the E71 from Nokia (it has a Qwerty pad).
There was also a surge in AT&T U-verse with total subscribers in service growing by 284,000 in the quarter ‘ up from 148,000 a year ago and sequentially above the 264,000 in the fourth quarter of 2008, to reach 1.3 million in service.
And finally AT&T’s broadband additions, which were not so strong last quarter have rebounded, up by 359,000 in the first quarter versus 236,000 in the preceding quarter. If you count wireless customers with 3G LaptopConnect cards as well, the increase was 471,000 taking total broadband to 16.7 million in service. If AT&T noticed the recession at all, it is over it now.