VZW growth hit by economy, revenues remain strong

Verizon Wireless posted second quarter results highlighted by strong postpaid net customer additions and growing wireless revenues.
The industry’s largest operator said it added 1.142 million customers during the second quarter, which was a 24% drop from the 1.5 million the carrier added during the second quarter of 2008. The carrier attributed the drop to flat gross additions due to less demand from business customers and an increase in customer churn from 1.12% during the second quarter of 2008 to 1.37% in 2009. Verizon Wireless, which ended the quarter with 87.7 million customers on its network, said the second quarter net additions were nearly all direct postpaid additions.
Wireless revenues jumped nearly 28% to $15.48 billion during the quarter with the segment accounting for more than 57% of Verizon Communications Inc.’s total revenues for the second quarter. Data revenue increased $1 billion year-over-year to $3.9 billion for the quarter and contributed nearly $15 in ARPU. Total ARPU remained flat year-over-year at $51.10.
In preparation for its impending LTE network launch, the carrier reported capital expenditures increased from $1.5 billion during the second quarter of 2008 and $1.6 billion during the first quarter of 2009 to $1.8 billion during the second quarter. The carrier said it’s on track to launch LTE in Boston and Seattle before the end of the year and have up to 100 million potential customers covered with its LTE network by the end of 2010.