AT&T is still losing video customers

AT&T also reported growth within its small-business customer segment, which is being driven by mobility, a big area of focus for the company this year. That’s thanks to its acquisition of DirecTV, which the company plans to capitalize on further later this year with the launch of not one, but three new streaming video services (technically four if you include their joint effort with the Chermin group).

AT&T’s second quarter sales were beefed up by the acquisition of DirecTV as the company reported adjusted earnings in line with expectations. Operating income was $6.6 billion, up from $5.8 billion in the second quarter of 2015.

Business Solutions, a group that includes both mobile and land-line services, was flat at $17.6bn in revenue, a 0.5 per cent decrease from past year. Ad revenue increased 15% to $265.1 million, while ticketing service revenue grew about 20% to $22.8 million.

Sales from business services were $17.6 billion, down 0.5 percent compared with previous year.

Pandora Media expects third quarter revenue to be between $360 million and $370 million, which is much weaker than the consensus of $378.2 million.

Wireless earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization margins came in at a record 41.4% for the latest quarter, while wireless EBITDA service margins also came in at a company record 49.8%. However, it was slightly under the $40.62 billion which analysts’ had estimated. Excluding amortization costs and merger-related expenses, among other items, profit per share rose to 72 cents from 70 cents.

For video services it was a game of two halves for AT&T: The recently acquired DirecTV service added 342,000 net subscribers for the spring quarter.

AT&T’s acquisition of DirecTV closed in July 2015, and the company said it has added almost 1 million US satellite TV customers in the past year. Cost synergies are ahead of target, we’ve added almost one million DirecTV subscribers since the acquisition, and our new video streaming services are scheduled to roll out later this year’.

AT&T’s Business Solutions unit remains its largest division, bringing in $17.58 billion in revenues, virtually flat on the year-ago quarter, while the telco’s consumer mobile business contributed $8.19 billion, down by 6.5%.

This year, shares of the Dallas-based company have gained about twenty four percent but slipped 1.2 percent during the extended trading hours after closing at $42.52 in regular trading.