AT&T just announced its second quarter 2012 results with consolidated revenues of $31.6 billion, up 0.3 percent versus the year-earlier period; up 2.0 percent when adjusted for Advertising Solutions sale. Compared with results for the second quarter of 2011, operating expenses were $24.8 billion versus $25.3 billion, down 2.3 percent year over year; excluding Advertising Solutions, operating expenses were $24.5 billion versus $24.6 billion in the year-ago quarter, down 0.6 percent.
Operating income was $6.8 billion, up from $6.2 billion; and AT&T’s operating income margin expanded to 21.6 percent, compared to 19.6 percent, the best in four years. The net income attributable to AT&T totaled $3.9 billion, or $0.66 per diluted share, up from $3.6 billion, or $0.60 per diluted share, in the year-earlier quarter.
Cash from operating activities totaled $9.7 billion, and capital expenditures totaled $4.5 billion. Free cash flow — cash from operating activities minus capital expenditures — totaled $5.1 billion. The company repurchased 75.8 million of its shares for $2.5 billion in the quarter. Year to date, the company has repurchased 143.5 million shares for $4.6 billion.
Q2 2012 Results Highlights:
- $0.66 diluted EPS compared to $0.60 diluted EPS in the second quarter of 2011, up 10 percent year over year and sequentially
- Consolidated revenues of $31.6 billion, up 0.3 percent versus the year-earlier period; up 2.0 percent when adjusted for Advertising Solutions sale
- Highest-ever wireless margins, operating income margin of 30.3 percent, with EBITDA service margin of 45.0 percent
- $2.5 billion in stock buybacks; 75.8 million shares repurchased
- AT&T’s growth engines — wireless, wireline data and managed services — represented 80 percent of total revenues when excluding Advertising Solutions, and grew 5.5 percent versus the same quarter a year ago, led by:
- 18.8 percent growth in wireless data revenues, up $1 billion versus the year-earlier quarter
- 13.5 percent growth in strategic business services revenues
- 38.3 percent growth in U-verse revenues
- Best-ever postpaid, prepaid and total wireless churn; postpaid churn drops to 0.97 percent
- 1.3 million total wireless net adds, with gains in every customer category; 320,000 postpaid net adds
- Strong smartphone sales of 5.1 million with more than one-third of all postpaid smartphone subscribers now on 4G-capable devices
- Branded computing (tablets, tethering plans, etc.) net adds of 496,000 to reach a total of 6.3 million, up more than 50 percent versus a year ago
- Postpaid wireless subscriber ARPU (average monthly revenues per subscriber) up 1.7 percent to $64.93
- First enterprise revenue growth in more than four years
- Wireline consumer revenues up 1.7 percent versus the year-earlier period; their strongest growth in more than four years
- 6.8 million total AT&T U-verse subscribers (TV and high speed Internet) in service; U-verse TV subscribers grew 22 percent year over year