AT&T exceeded analysts’ estimates last week for the company’s new monthly phone contract subscribers. This occurred as American consumers looked to benefit from emerging 5G technologies during the second quarter. Having added 789,000 new postpaid phone subscribers to its network, AT&T raised growth forecasts for both its full-year revenue and adjusted earnings per share.
These figures are a vast year-on-year improvement for the telecommunications company, which lost 151,000 subscribers during the same quarter last year at the height of the coronavirus pandemic.
In an effort to recover from its coronavirus-triggered losses, AT&T has put a sizeable portion of capital towards upgrading its networks so as to accommodate the latest 5G technology. The demand for faster internet has spiked significantly due to consumers working and learning from home.
In addition to its 5G infrastructure, AT&T has also made inroads with its media unit, Warnermedia, which has landed 2.8 million new subscribers in the U.S. for its premium channel HBO as well as the HBO Max streaming platform. While the company initially expected between 67 million and 70 million subscribers for the HBO Max service this year, this estimate has been increased to between 70 million and 73 million.
