Verizon today kicked off the stream of earnings announcements that we'll see in the coming weeks by sharing its fourth quarter 2013 numbers. According to the report, Verizon Wireless added 1.7 million retail connections during the quarter, 1.6 million of which were retail postpaid connections. The big red carrier says that, in 2013, it added a total of 4.1 million retail postpaid connections. In all, Verizon finished the year with 102.8 million retail users, including 96.8 million retail postpaid customers.
Verizon reports that it activated 8.8 million smartphones during the fourth quarter and that 87 percent of all devices activated during the final three months of the year were handsets. Nine million of the devices activated during the quarter included 4G LTE connectivity. Verizon also says that smartphones accounted for 70 percent of all postpaid phones on Verizon at the end of 2013, an increase from 67 percent at the end of the third quarter. Finally, Ol' Red reports that 46 percent of its postpaid accounts are signed up for a Share Everything plan.
On the financial side, Verizon Wireless's total revenues for the quarter totaled $21.1 billion, a figure that's up 5.7 percent year-over-year. Total revenues for 2013 did even better, growing 6.8 percent from 2012 to finish at $81 billion.
Overall it looks like Verizon had itself a pretty good end to 2013. The carrier managed to add nearly 2 million retail connections and activate nearly 9 million smartphones, showing that customers are still attracted to Verizon and its handset lineup. I'm sure that Verizon is pleased to see that nearly half of its postpaid subscriber base is on a Share Everything plan as well, as it continues to try and move customers to shared plans that make it easier for them to add additional devices to their plan.
Verizon is scheduled to hold a call to discuss its Q4 2013 results at 8:30 a.m. ET. Be sure to keep it locked to PhoneDog because, as usual, I'll be listening in to the call just in case Verizon's got any other interesting tidbits of information to share.
Via Verizon
