Bank of America C-Suite TMT Conference
After the growth increase that carriers saw during the pandemic in 2021-2022, AT&T had projected that the wireless industry would go back to pre-pandemic norms. However, AT&T Chief Financial Officer Pascal Desroches gave a very upbeat assessment of the U.S. wireless carrier growth (NYSE: T), yesterday, during the Bank of America C-Suite TMT Conference.
“Coming into 2023, we expected [the growth] to normalize. And in fact, it has continued to normalize. But it’s still growing,” Desroches told David Barden, BoA Analyst, according to a Seeking Alpha transcript.
AT&T announced that it had record first quarter wireless service revenues and profits. It had 400,000 postpaid phone net ads, with growing ARPUs and low churn.
“On the big picture level, we are operating at a time where the industry construct is really healthy,” Desroches said. “Subscribers are growing. Everybody — all the industry participants have raised prices in the last year. I think it is to signal the confidence that there is. So overall, revenues are at an all-time high, profits are an all-time high for the Industry.”
Desroches said he is confident about AT&T’s position relative to its cable competitors. He noted that the porting ratios relative to cable as an industry haven’t changed in the last 12 to 18 months, which means the cable gains are not coming at AT&T’s expense.
“I like how we are competing [with cable],” he said. “And look, cable will do what they do, but I think they largely are playing in a different pool than we are and target a different customer base.”
Desroches said that since cable companies and carriers don’t define subscribers in the same way, it’s more important to examine the overall wireless service revenues. In the first half of the year, Desroche anticipates AT&T will see five percent, which he said is a “really healthy share of the dollars coming into the industry.”
By J. Sharpe Smith, Inside Towers Technology Editor
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