Verizon Communications today reported its fourth-quarter 2015 earnings, as well as its annual report. For the quarter, the company posted earnings of $1.32 per share, as compared to a $0.54 loss in the fourth quarter of 2014. For the full year, Verizon reported $4.37 in earnings per share in 2015, compared with $2.42 in 2014. Perhaps more importantly for the company, its wireless customer base continues to grow, with 1.5 million customers added in the last quarter alone
According to Verizon, the company invested approximately $28 billion in spectrum licenses and capital for future network capacity, in addition to the more than $4 billion acquisition of AOL in June. New revenue streams from the "Internet of Things" are growing, with revenues of approximately $200 million in fourth-quarter 2015 and about $690 million for the full year - a year-over-year increase of 18 percent.
Verizon's wireless division posted $23.7 billion in fourth-quarter 2015, up 1.2 percent compared with fourth-quarter 2014. Service revenues totaled $17.2 billion, down 5.6 percent year over year. Over the same period, equipment revenues increased to $5.4 billion, up from $4.2 billion, mostly because of the shift away from subsidized device purchases.
Verizon Wireless reported 1.5 million retail postpaid net additions in fourth-quarter 2015 and 4.5 million for the full year. Retail postpaid churn fell to 0.96 percent in the fourth quarter, as well as for the year. The company added 906,000 4G smartphones to its postpaid customer base in fourth-quarter 2015. Postpaid phone net adds totaled 449,000 as net smartphone adds of 713,000 were partially offset by a net decline of basic phones. Tablet net adds totaled 960,000 in the quarter, and net prepaid devices declined by 157,000.
During fourth-quarter 2015, 7.6 million phones were activated on device payment plans. Verizon has about 25 million device payment phone connections in total, representing approximately 29 percent of its postpaid phone base. Overall, more than 40 percent of Verizon's postpaid phone customers are on unsubsidized service pricing.
Despite the Fios buildout being completed, Verizon added 99,000 net new Fios internet connections and 20,000 net new Fios video connections in fourth-quarter 2015. Connections totaled 7.0 million for Fios internet and 5.8 million for Fios video at the end of 2015, representing year-over-year increases of 6.3 percent and 3.2 percent, respectively. Wireline consumer revenues were $4.1 billion, an increase of 2.6 percent compared with fourth-quarter 2014.
Fios revenues represented 80.4 percent of the total, with more than 70 percent of consumer Fios internet customers subscribed to data speeds of 50 megabits per second or higher. The company expects to close its sale of "high-margin wireline operations," meaning a large percentage of its Fios operation, to Frontier Communications.
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