AT&T Q3 wireless data revenues soar 50 percent

AT&T posted third quarter earnings of $3.2 billion, with profits rising approximately 5 percent on the strength of record postpaid subscriber additions, surging Apple iPhone 3G sales and impressive mobile data revenue growth. AT&T activated 2.4 million iPhone 3G devices during the third quarter, approximately 40 percent of them for subscribers new to the operator--in all, AT&T gained 2 million net subscribers in Q3, 1.7 million of them postpaid consumers, the largest total for any quarter in company history. AT&T now boasts 74.9 million wireless subscribers in all. "I am particularly pleased with the customer response to the iPhone 3G," said AT&T chairman and CEO Randall Stephenson in a prepared statement. "The new customers we're winning are high-value, with attractive revenue and churn profiles."

AT&T's wireless revenues increased 15.4 percent in the third quarter to $12.6 billion, with wireless service revenues (excluding handset and accessory sales) growing 14.3 percent to $11.3 billion. Retail postpaid subscriber ARPU was $58.99, up 2.6 percent year-over-year. Most impressively, AT&T posted 50.5 percent wireless data revenue growth over Q3 2007, buoyed by increases in mobile web access, messaging, email and related services. According to AT&T, both wireless Internet access revenues and multimedia messaging volumes more than doubled year-over-year.

For more on AT&T's Q3 results:
- read this release

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