Verizon added 406,000 postpaid phone subscribers in the third quarter of 2026, up from 44,000 a year earlier and its best third quarter in five years, the company said in its earnings release on Monday. It raised its full-year forecast for the third quarter running.
Postpaid phones, the monthly contract lines that carry most of a carrier's profit, are the number investors watch. A year ago Verizon was losing them. The interesting part is what it says it did not spend to turn that around.
How did Verizon win the customers?
By its own account, with cheaper promotions rather than richer ones. The release says promotional cost of acquisition fell 41 per cent from a year earlier and promotional cost of retention fell 30 per cent. Postpaid phone churn, the share of customers leaving each month, improved to 0.94 per cent from 0.98 per cent.
"By prioritizing customer-first offerings like Simplicity and our expanded loyalty program over heavy subsidies, we are winning loyal, high-value customers while expanding margins, reducing churn, and generating strong sustained cash flow," Dan Schulman, Verizon's chief executive, said in the release. On the earnings call he said, "We aren't competing on promotions or free phones or subsidies," and "There were no free lines," according to a transcript published by The Motley Fool.
The income statement is consistent with that. Verizon still sells handsets for less than they cost it: wireless equipment revenue was $5.12 billion and the cost of wireless equipment $5.82 billion. By this publication's arithmetic that loss on devices was $707 million in the quarter, against $864 million a year earlier, a narrowing of 18 per cent. Selling, general and administrative expense fell 3.5 per cent.
How does it compare with AT&T and Comcast?
On phones, Verizon did better than AT&T this quarter. On home internet, it did worse.
- Postpaid phone net additions: Verizon 406,000; AT&T 379,000
- Postpaid phone churn (monthly): Verizon 0.94 per cent; AT&T 0.92 per cent
- Broadband net additions: Verizon 314,000; AT&T 769,000; Comcast −144,000
- Fiber net additions: Verizon 155,000; AT&T 442,000
- Fixed wireless net additions: Verizon 159,000; AT&T 327,000
Sources: Verizon earnings release, 26 October 2026; AT&T earnings release; Comcast earnings release. Compiled by this publication. AT&T's broadband figure is its "Advanced Connectivity" fiber and fixed wireless customers; Comcast's is domestic broadband customers.
AT&T's quarter, which this publication covered last week, added more than twice as many internet customers as Verizon's. Verizon's fixed wireless additions fell to 159,000 from 261,000 a year earlier, while fiber additions rose to 155,000 from 61,000. Comcast lost 144,000 broadband customers in the same quarter.
What did the quarter cost?
Revenue grew slowly and debt grew fast. Total revenue rose 1.5 per cent to $34.31 billion, short of the $34.7 billion analysts expected, according to Hargreaves Lansdown, which said the shares were broadly flat before the open. Mobility and broadband service revenue rose 2.9 per cent to $23.5 billion. Adjusted EBITDA rose 8.0 per cent to $13.80 billion, a margin of 40.2 per cent against 37.8 per cent, and adjusted earnings per share rose 8.3 per cent to $1.31. GAAP earnings were $1.25 a share.
Net unsecured debt was $123.7 billion at 30 September against $110.1 billion at the end of 2025, a rise of $13.7 billion. The cash-flow statement shows $9.48 billion paid for acquisitions in the nine months, $4.38 billion for wireless licences and $4.0 billion for share buybacks. Verizon has been integrating Frontier, the fiber operator it bought; Tony Skiadas, the chief financial officer, said on the call that the integration was ahead of schedule and on track for more than $1 billion of annual cost savings by 2028, according to the transcript. Net unsecured debt was 2.3 times adjusted EBITDA, and Schulman said Verizon "will hit our leverage targets early next year." Interest expense rose 17.2 per cent to $1.95 billion.
What to watch
The new forecast of 1.1 million to 1.2 million postpaid phone additions for 2026, after 645,000 in nine months, requires 455,000 to 555,000 in the fourth quarter by this publication's arithmetic. That would exceed the 406,000 just reported, in a quarter that includes the holiday selling season. If Verizon gets there without raising its promotional spending, Schulman's case holds. The fourth-quarter release, due early next year, will show the cost line alongside the subscriber line.
Subscriber figures, churn, promotional cost changes, revenue, equipment revenue and cost, adjusted EBITDA, EPS, cash flow, debt, the acquisition payment, share buybacks, guidance and Dan Schulman's statement are from Verizon's third-quarter 2026 earnings release, filed with the SEC on 26 October 2026. The analysts' revenue expectation and the early share reaction are from Hargreaves Lansdown's note of the same day. Remarks from the earnings call are from a transcript published by The Motley Fool on 26 October. AT&T's third-quarter figures are from its earnings release of October 2026 and Comcast's from its own release, both previously reported by this publication. The fourth-quarter range implied by guidance, the equipment loss and the three-company comparison are this publication's arithmetic. The analysis is our own.
