Key Financial Data
- Q1 Total revenue: $34.4 billion (+2.9%)
- Wireless service revenue: $29.9 billion (+1.6%)
- Wireless equipment revenue: $5.7 billion (+5.2%)
- Net income: $5.1 billion (+3.3%)
- Total wireless retail connections: 115.8 million (+0.7%)
- Total retail postpaid connections: 92.7% (+0.7%)
- Postpaid phone net additions: 55,000 (+340,000)
- Postpaid ARPU/ARPA: $155.55 (-1.9%)
- Total retail prepaid connections: 19.3 million (+1.6%)
- Prepaid phone net additions: 115,000
- Prepaid ARPU/ARPA: $33.31 (+3.3%)
- Total broadband connections: 17.6 million (+24.9%)
- Total wireless broadband connections: 7 million (+25%)
- Total fiber broadband connections, Fios: 10.6 million (+21.9%)
- Read more Q1 2026 media earnings coverage
- Read more coverage of Verizon
Verizon on Monday reported modest revenue growth and stronger profitability during the first quarter (Q1) of the year, supported by improving subscriber trends and steady cash flow.
The positive financials released on Monday prompted Verizon to raise its full-year earnings outlook, a move that cause Verizon’s stock price to rise more than 2 percent in mid-day trading.
During Q1, total operating revenue was $34.4 billion, up 2.9 percent year-over-year. Growth was driven by wireless service revenue and higher equipment sales, with mobility and broadband service revenue increasing 1.6 percent to about $22.9 billion and wireless equipment revenue rising 5.2 percent to $5.7 billion.
Net income totaled $5.1 billion, up 3.3 percent, while adjusted EBITDA increased 6.7 percent to $13.4 billion. Diluted earnings per share rose 4.3 percent to $1.20, and adjusted EPS climbed 7.6 percent to $1.28, marking the company’s strongest quarterly EPS growth since 2021.
“Our first-quarter 2026 results show that our turnaround is not only progressing, it is gaining momentum,” Verizon CEO Dan Schulman said in prepared remarks released on Monday. “We are beginning to reclaim our market leadership by putting the customer at the center of everything we do.”
Stock Price
Subscriber trends improved, particularly in postpaid phones. Verizon reported 55,000 postpaid phone net additions in the quarter, its first positive result for a first quarter since 2013 and a year-over-year improvement of more than 340,000. Prepaid net additions totaled 115,000, extending growth to seven consecutive quarters.
Broadband remained a key growth driver, with 341,000 net additions, including 214,000 fixed wireless subscribers and 127,000 fiber subscribers. Verizon ended the quarter with approximately 16.8 million fixed wireless and fiber broadband connections.
The company also reported continued stability in its wireless base, with retail connections growing modestly compared to Q1 2025 while churn improved slightly to less than 1 percent for postpaid phones.
Cash flow remained strong. Verizon generated $8 billion in cash from operations, up 2.6 percent, and $3.8 billion in free cash flow, a 4 percent increase. Capital expenditures totaled $4.2 billion during the quarter.
Schulman said the company’s operational improvements are translating into better customer metrics and financial performance.
“This disciplined approach is already delivering healthier economics, lower churn, and the first positive first-quarter postpaid phone net adds we’ve seen in over a decade,” Schulman noted.
Verizon raised its full-year adjusted EPS guidance to a range of $4.95 to $4.99, representing growth of 5 percent to 6 percent. The company now expects total retail postpaid phone net additions to land in the upper half of its previously issued range of 750,000 to 1 million.
On a conference call with investors, Schulman attributed the company’s better business performance to improvements in its service-based offerings and customer experiences.
“This is a strong continuation of the momentum we established in Q4 of last year, and it is happening while we are also improving the overall quality and economics of our customer relationships,” Schulman said.
Verizon is replacing some customer perks with other improvements: The days of offering free handsets with the hopes of luring subscribers away from AT&T and Verizon are on the way out, replaced by improved customer service and better network connections for existing and prospective customers alike.
“Not every retention is going to be a free handset,” Schulman said on the conference call. “I think our industry has been too dependent on free handsets being the solution for everything, and I think all of us — and I know, for sure, Verizon — can be more-profitable when we start to micro segment and really listen to what a customer wants and not just give them a free handset for everything.”
In the past, Schulman said Verizon would solve customer issues by offering free phones to those who are willing to stick with the service instead of jumping ship. But that didn’t improve the experience for customers — it just made them stick around with a service that they weren’t happy with.
Now, Schulman affirmed the company is offering 4G LTE and 5G network extenders, known as femtocells, which boost the availability of Verizon’s signals in homes and businesses where wireless connectivity is otherwise difficult.
Those network extenders tend to be much cheaper for the company than offering customers $1,000 phones, especially when a subscriber might already like the handset they’re currently using.
“If we had listened and sent a femtocell to be installed at the house, we could have done that at one-third the cost and made the customer happy,” Schulman said.
Another way to boost customer service and satisfaction is to utilize artificial intelligence to quickly solve problems and help subscribers troubleshoot their devices and the network at large, Schulman noted. Verizon has already started leaning into artificial intelligence to achieve these goals, and the company has started to see proof of its effort in its rising Net Promoter Score.
Eighty-five percent of the company’s problems are now being solved using AI, Schulman affirmed. Verizon is working with leading artificial intelligence developers like Anthropic, the makers of Claude, and Google to explore ways to further improve its network and customer satisfaction in a way that delivers results and cuts down on costs.
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