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Verizon 4Q Profit Drops 38 Percent; Wireless Sales Up; Data ARPU Increases 63 Percent Posted by David Kaplan Mon 29 Jan 2007 08:58 PM PST Updated below, with details from conference call: Verizon (NYSE: VZ) on Monday reported a 38 percent drop in 4Q profit after divesting several businesses, but the telco added 2.3 million net wireless subscribers during the last three months of 2006. Including the 2.3 million net customers added, the company’s Verizon Wireless business saw its U.S. subscriber base reach 59.1 million, up 15 percent from the same time a year ago. Other highlights included: -- The telecommunications giant had net income of $1.03 billion, or 35 cents a share, for the quarter, down from $1.66 billion, or 59 cents a share, a year ago. -- Verizon’s broadband FTTP network—over which customers receive FiOS Internet and FiOS TV services—passed a total of more than 6 million premises by the end of 2006. -- Revenue in the latest quarter rose 26.1 percent to $22.6 billion. -- On the data side (which includes mobile content, among other things) revenues doubled over the previous year, contributing $4.5 billion in revenues in 2006.  In Q406, data revenues were 15.8 percent of all service revenues, up from 9.8 percent in Q505.  Data service ARPU in Q4 increased by 63 percent over the year-ago quarter.  The company had 34.3 million retail data customers in December—a 44 percent increase over Q405. -- Data made up $7.91 of total service ARPU, up substantially year over year, and $0.75 sequentially. -- About 35% of data revenue comes from business-focused applications. Revenues from its Internet access and e-mail products increased 120% year over year, and more than 50% of its data revenue growth comes from services other than messaging, primarily EVDO-based. -- During Q4, Verizon Wireless customers exchanged 17.7 billion text messages—which it says is a company and industry record (not sure why they claim that)—and 353 million picture/video messages.  Customers also completed more than 78 million downloads of games, ringtones, ringback tones and exclusive content.

SK forecasts 2007 revenues up at KRW 11 trillionPublished: Monday 29 January 2007 | 02:11 PM CET Print | Comment | Mail South Korean mobile operator SK Telecom has forecast 2007 revenues of KRW 11 trillion, up from KRW 10.6 trillion in 2006. Wireless internet is expected to account for 29.5 percent of total revenues. Capital expenditure this year is estimated at KRW 1.55 trillion, of which KRW 610 billion will go HSDPA investments. The operator aims to maintain a market share over 50 percent this year. Shareholder returns for the year are expected to be at a similar level to last year including a KRW 8,00 dividend and KRW 200 billion share buyback.

Telecom operators are transforming from being classic telephony providers into aggregators and distributors of multimedia and entertainment services, which include converged communications, gaming, social networking, news and the like. As they say, content makes the king.

More than ever, revenue management needs to become a high-level strategic initiative for operators to compete and sustain in the changing telecom marketplace and grow their current customer base.

Google homes in on revenues from phones