Earthlink (Nasdaq: ELNK) saw its shares of ups and downs during the fourth quarter of 2010 as revenue rose 1 percent from Q4 to $168.8 million, but full year 2010 revenues declined 14 percent from the full year 2009 to $622.2 million.
Broadband continued to be the star performer in Earthlink's portfolio, comprising 63 percent of EarthLink's consumer access revenue in the fourth quarter of 2010, up from 59 percent in Q4 2009.
In its consumer services unit, Earthlink was able to stem net subscriber losses. During the quarter, net subscriber losses were 79,000, down from 93,000 in Q3 2010 and 132,000 in Q4 2009.
And as its consumer subscriber base continues to increase in tenure to two or more years, Earthlink reported that customer churn also improved to 2.8 percent in Q4 2010, down from 3.1 percent in Q3 2010 and 3.2 percent in Q4 2009.
In addition to consumer broadband, one segment that Earthlink has planted a seed for future growth is its business services segment. During the fourth quarter, the business service segment revenue made up 36 percent of Earthlink's revenue, up from 21 percent--a factor it attributes to its acquisition of ITC Deltacom.
It's likely that when Earthlink completes its pending acquisition of One Communications in the second quarter, the service provider will have another piece of its IP and fiber-based network in place to drive further business service growth.
"With the acquisition of Deltacom complete and the One Communications acquisition on track to close in the second quarter of this year, we will have dense fiber network across the eastern half of the United States and a ubiquitous IP footprint that makes us unique in terms of the value proposition we can offer multi-location enterprise customers," said EarthLink Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Rolla P. Huff in a release.
For more:
- see the release
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