AT&T Q1 2022 Earnings Report Recap

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AT&T (T) Financial Results: Analysis

AT&T Inc. (T) reported Q1 FY 2022 earnings results that matched analyst expectations. Adjusted earnings per share (EPS) fell 9.4% year over year (YOY), matching consensus estimates. Revenue was also in line with expectations, falling 13.2% YOY. AT&T said that the decline in revenue reflected the impact of divested businesses and lower Business Wireline revenue. The company beat analysts' predictions for wireless postpaid net adds.

The telecom giant's shares were up more than 1% in pre-market trading following the earnings release. Over the past year, AT&T's stock has provided a total return of -7.5%, below the S&P 500's total return of 7.9%.

T Wireless Postpaid Net Adds

AT&T reported wireless postpaid net adds of 965,000, up about 17.3% compared to the year-ago quarter. Wireless postpaid net additions are a metric used by AT&T to gauge the total number of net new mobile subscribers during a period. Mobile subscriptions include wireless services for phones, tablets, wearables, and other mobile devices. Postpaid subscriptions differ from prepaid subscriptions in that payments are made at the end of a period based on usage. This key metric reflects the net difference between the number of new postpaid wireless subscriptions and the number of subscriptions that were terminated.

Wireless postpaid net adds are significantly more important to AT&T's business since it recently completed the spinoff of its WarnerMedia business. WarnerMedia was combined with Discovery Inc., and the newly formed company of Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc. started trading on the Nasdaq on April 11 under the ticker "WBD."

AT&T said in its earnings release that it had its best first quarter for postpaid phone net adds—691,000—in over a decade. It also said its fiber broadband net adds remained strong.

AT&T's next earnings report (for Q2 FY 2022) is expected to be released on July 26, 2022.