Verizon Fios revenue of $2.9B soars past pre-pandemic tally

Verizon posted its highest consumer Fios revenue since adopting its current reporting structure in 2019, as strong subscriber gains continued to drive sales growth.

During the company’s Q2 2021 earnings call, Verizon CFO Matt Ellis said consumer Fios revenue of $2.9 billion was up 5.4% year on year, “surpassing pre-Covid levels, driven by the continued uptake of gigabit speeds.”

For context, Verizon recorded consumer Fios revenue of $2.77 billion in Q2 2019 before the pandemic hit and $2.75 billion in Q2 2020 during the height of the outbreak.

Ellis stated “the quality and reliability of our Fios service combined with the simplicity of our mix and match offerings continues to drive strong demand for broadband.” He noted Verizon’s overall “Fios Internet customer base is more than 7% higher than a year ago. Our trailing 12-month total Fios Internet net add performance is the highest since 2015.”

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The operator raked in 99,000 Fios Internet customers across its consumer and business segments in Q2, with 92,000 flowing in from its consumer division. It ended the quarter with a total of 6.738 million Fios internet customers across both units, up from 6.298 million in the year-ago quarter.

Analysts at New Street Research noted both the consumer and business net add figures beat expectations, which they had set at 52,000 and 0, respectively.

Meanwhile, analysts at MoffetNathanson flagged a “growing divergence between Consumer, which is getting stronger as Verizon focuses more on FiOS broadband and less on FiOS video, and Business Wireline, which is getting weaker.” They estimated business wireline revenue decreased 5.1% in the quarter, marking a steeper drop than the 2% drop in Q1.

On the whole, though, they concluded the operator’s Fios offering “continues to show strength, a product of both more aggressive pricing and a lessening drag from video as the video base shrinks.”

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Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg said the operator views the business segment as “one of the great opportunities we have over time” and is in the midst of overhauling its platforms and products to enable it to scale. He pointed to expected benefits from Verizon’s rollout of mobile edge compute and fixed wireless access business internet offerings, but acknowledged the unit does face headwinds, including a “sustained decline” in wireline.

Consolidated revenue of $33.8 billion increased 10.9% year on year, while net income rose 23% to $5.9 billion.