By Harshita Mary Varghese
(Reuters) -Verizon Communications (VZ) lost more wireless subscribers in the first quarter than expected Wall Street, while the American telecommunications giant faced the repercussions of recent price increases and aggressive promotions of its competitors.
The actions of the company fell 3.4% in the market prior to the market.
The company warned in March that the off-season promotions of AT&T and T-Mobile would lead to “soft” growth of subscribers, fueling fears concerning the intensification of competition in an industry in the running for a limited basin of new subscribers.
He also increased the monthly prices for his customizable MyPlan accounts with five or more than $ 3 per line, while customers of the new Verizon plan have been faced with an increase of $ 4 per line for unique mobile lines.
“We had a fairly high price in January, and the elasticity on this price was higher than what we had planned,” Sowmyanarayan Sampath, CEO of Verizon Consumer told Reuters.
This led to a higher unsubscription, the percentage of customers coming out of a service, Verizon reporting a loss of 289,000 monthly wireless subscribers in the first quarter, after adding a record of 568,000 customers during the December quarter.
Analysts expected the company to lose 166,400 subscribers, according to FostSet Data.
“March has been very strong, especially the last two weeks and in April, we had almost two -digit growth,” said Sampath.
The company has introduced a three -year price guarantee in early April to lock customers for its MyPlan and Myhome offers.
He also reaffirmed his annual adjusted profits and his cash flow prospects available, a sign that she was confident in her business plans in the middle of economic uncertainty.
In the first quarter, total turnover increased by 1.5% to 33.5 billion dollars, which was estimated by $ 33.24 billion, according to data compiled by LSEG.
Wireless service income increased by 2.7% to $ 20.8 billion, helped by the price increases implemented by the company.
(Report by Harshita Mary Varghese in Bengaluru; edition by Arun Koyyur)
