Free Newsletter
AT&T predicts uptick in 2010
Free newsletter via e-mail
Tools
AT&T's CEO Randall Stephenson believes that they will see the light at the end of the economic tunnel in the second half of 2010. This comes in the face of ongoing layoffs, widening landline voice losses, and a drop in business service revenues during the third-quarter.
Even though the business services unit has been one of AT&T's cash cows, revenue decreased 10.5 percent from the third quarter of 2008. "We're a butts-in-the-seats kind of business," Stephenson said to in a speech at the Wall Street Journal's CEO Council on Tuesday.
In the near-term Stephenson presented a sobering, yet honest, outlook. He said that AT&T will see little, if any, rise in Q4 09 results. What's more, Stephenson said he could not predict when the company would stop cutting jobs.
Along with job losses and failing businesses another factor that AT&T believes is slowing down enterprise business sales is the uncertainty over new government initiatives such as healthcare reform. Still, AT&T, along with its ILEC peers, has increased its advertising and marketing budget to promote services and new products to be prepared when enterprises get ready to start spending again.
For more:
- Wall Street Journal has this article
Related articles
AT&T Q3 09 wireless up, landlines down again
AT&T Q3 '09: Wireline revenues to take another hit
AT&T: U-Verse on track - Fiber to the X
AT&T comes to blows with Google again
More stories about Business Service Wall Street Randall Stephenson Government Initiatives Enterprise Segment
Comments
Posted by Anonymous | November 23, 2009 - 10:28am
It has a great deal to do with healthcare reform. #1 Medical communities are not spending money due to fears over what healthcare "reform" will bring them. Hospitals are not adding to their campuses nor infrastructure. #2 Non-profit medical communities are seeing charitable contributions come down due to the economy. #3 Healthcare reform affects ATT as it relates to labor costs to a company whose non-management forces are represented by a labor union that is adverse to contributing to their own healthcare costs.
Posted by Anonymous | November 19, 2009 - 11:08am
Your comment "What has contributed to the slowdown in the enterprise segment has been uncertainty over new government initiatives such as healthcare reform." seems way out from left field - or should I say "right" field. Loss of jobs, failing businesses, and businesses reducing costs is responsible for the enterprise segment slowdown - which has nothing to do with healthcare reform.
Comments (2) | Post a comment