LITTLE ROCK, Ark.-Alltel Corp. reported second-quarter results from current businesses, excluding one-time adjustments, reflecting the impact of the first phase of a wireless property exchange in 13 states with Bell Atlantic Corp. and GTE Corp.
Alltel reported a 13-percent increase in communications revenue to $1.4 billion, which the company said was driven by wireless growth of 14 percent for the quarter. Total company revenue rose 9 percent to $1.8 billion, returning 74 cents per share to stockholders.
Alltel also noted its wireless operations added 81,000 customers during the second quarter, combining with the 690,000 customers it acquired from the property exchange, bringing its total customer base to 5.9 million customers.
“The integration of the new markets is going extremely well,” said Joe Ford, chairman and chief executive officer of Alltel. “We are pleased to report strong financial results for the quarter that are in line with our targets.”
Alltel began deploying equipment for a fixed wireless local loop trial. “We are very excited about the opportunity this technology presents, as it could substantially improve the way we deploy competitive local telephone service in our wireless markets. We remain on course to reach 43 cities with our competitive local phone service by the end of 2000,” added Ford.
