Qwest net income increases, revenue slides

Qwest Communications is continuing to show improvement, as the carrier reported a profit increase for the fourth quarter of 89% to $366 million, from $194 million in Q4 2006. The net income boost resulted in a doubling of earnings-per-share to 20 cents for the latest quarter. However, it wasn't revenue that drove the rise, but ongoing reductions in operational costs, plus a tax benefit. Revenue actually dropped 1.5% for the quarter to $3.44 billion, but operational expenses declined more than 6%.

Meanwhile, Qwest saw access line decline of 6.5%, which is a higher rate of loss than many other telcos showed for the quarter. Voice revenue slid 7.4%, and adding further fuel to speculation that broadband adoption is slowing industry-wide, Qwest gained 95,000 broadband customers during the quarter, about 70,000 less than it gained for the same period in 2006.

For more:
- read this Dow Jones Newswires story [1] at CNN Money

Related articles:
- Qwest [2] announced a $300 million FTTN plan with its third-quarter 2007 earnings