Data revenue growth fuels AT&T's Q1 surge

AT&T reported first-quarter profits rose to $3.46 billion, up nearly 22 percent from $2.85 billion in Q1 2007, a surge led by continued growth in wireless. Total wireless revenues increased 18.3 percent versus year-ago revenues of $11.8 billion, with wireless service revenues (excluding handset and accessory sales) growing 17.1 percent to $10.6 billion. Wireless ARPU for Q1 2008 was $50.18, up 2.0 percent over the year-ago quarter--according to AT&T, wireless service ARPU has now posted year-over-year growth across seven consecutive quarters.

AT&T posted first-quarter wireless data revenues of $2.3 billion, up 57.3 percent versus Q1 2007--crediting increases in web access, email, messaging, data access and media bundles for the growth, the operator said data now represents 21.5 percent of its total wireless service revenues, up from 16.0 percent in the first quarter of 2007 and 10.9 percent in the first quarter of 2006. AT&T subscribers sent more than 620 million multimedia messages and 44 billion text messages during Q1, both figures doubling year-ago totals.

For more on AT&T's Q1 results:
- read this release

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