Key Financial Data
- Q2 Total revenue: $31.6 billion (+2.3% year-over)
- Operating income: $7.0 billion (+7.7%)
- Adjusted operating income: $7.5 billion (+15.4%)
- Income from continuing operations: $5 billion (+3.6%)
- Diluted earnings: $0.66 per share (+6.5%)
- Adjusted diluted earnings: $0.65 per share (+20.4%)
- Adjusted EBITDA: $12.3 billion (+5.2%)
- Cash from operating activities: $10.8 billion (+10.2%)
- Free cash flow: $4.7 billion (+6.8%)
- Advanced Connectivity revenue: $28.6 billion (+4.1%)
- Advanced Connectivity service revenue: $23.5 billion (+5.1%)
- Wireless service revenue: $17.4 billion (+3.3%)
- Advanced home internet revenue: $2.9 billion (+27.3%)
- Advanced Connectivity operating income: $7.3 billion (+20.3%)
- Consumer and business internet net additions: 646,000
- Fiber net additions: 367,000
- Fixed wireless net additions: 279,000
- Postpaid phone net additions: 432,000
- Postpaid phone churn: 0.86%
- Read more Q2 2026 media earnings coverage
AT&T improved its wireless broadband churn during the second quarter (Q2) of the year and charted a course that promises more than 40 million fiber broadband passings by the end of the year and 60 million by the start of the next decade.
During Q2, revenue rose 2.3 percent from the prior year to $31.6 billion. Adjusted earnings reached 65 cents per diluted share, up from 54 cents one year earlier and ahead of the 59-cent consensus estimate cited by Wall Street analysts.
Income from continuing operations increased 3.6 percent to $5 billion, while adjusted EBITDA rose 5.2 percent to $12.3 billion. Operating income totaled $7 billion.
AT&T added 432,000 postpaid phone subscribers during the quarter, well above analyst expectations of approximately 338,500. Postpaid phone churn was 0.86 percent, while the company recorded its strongest consumer postpaid wireless account growth in more than three years with 147,000 additions.
Wireless service revenue increased 3.3 percent, benefiting from subscriber growth and pricing changes introduced during the quarter.
Internet additions totaled a record 646,000 across consumer and business operations. That included 367,000 fiber subscribers and 279,000 fixed wireless customers.
Stock Price
AT&T added more than 1 million fiber locations during the quarter, bringing its total footprint to 38.6 million consumer and business locations. The company remains on track to exceed 40 million locations by the end of 2026 and 60 million by the end of 2030, executives said on Wednesday.
More than 42 percent of households using AT&T Fiber or Internet Air also subscribe to the company’s wireless service, a strong sign that the service provider’s efforts to promote its bundled opportunities to consumers is working.
By comparison, revenue from AT&T’s legacy operations declined 25.9 percent as the company continued retiring its copper network and moving customers to fiber, fixed wireless and other newer services. Legacy operating income fell by $436 million to $523 million.
Last month, AT&T secured the approval of the Federal Communications Commission to sunset its existing copper-based infrastructure in California, a move that will affect nearly 200,000 customers who rely on that network for landline phone service and DSL Internet access. The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) must also approve the plan before AT&T can move forward with the shutdown. (In May, AT&T filed a lawsuit against the CPUC over certain copper-based mandates.)
AT&T previously said it expects to start winding down the older network by next June, and has promised to expand the availability of its fiber-based offerings in affected locations, though it hasn’t provided specifics to that effect. The company has pledged $19 billion toward building out fiber in the state over the next few years, but that commitment doesn’t explicitly say underserved areas — including those who currently rely on copper services — will benefit from that investment.
In most California cities, AT&T provides services to some neighborhoods while turning others toward its AT&T Internet Air product, which uses its 4G LTE and 5G networks and is slower than its fiber-based offerings. The Desk primarily operates out of two Northern California cities where newer communities and densely-populated areas have access to AT&T Fiber, while sparsely-populated and older neighborhoods do not, according to broadband maps maintained by the FCC.
On a conference call with investors, AT&T CEO John Stankey acknowledged the company was “investing heavily in urban and suburban areas for a reason.”
“We think it matches best to our capabilities; we think that’s where we can drive returns most effectively,” Stankey admitted. “I also think it’s possible you can see some shift in serving architectures, moving forward in rural areas.”
He continued: “I do believe there will be areas that satellite might serve adequately that allow us to maybe shrink our terrestrial footprint on, what I would refer to as, poverty sites, sites sit out there and pick up relatively small amounts of traffic, but provide continuity of connectivity, and that might be able to positively impact our cost structure in those instances and at the same time, give the customer a really good experience.”
Stankey further said the company stands to save a considerable amount of money by pushing customers off older copper technology and onto fiber-based and wireless solutions.
“By the end of the year we expect a couple of hundred wire centers to have zero customers,” Stankey noted. “This is an important step, providing the path to unlock access to descaling parts of our cost structure and to further streamline our operations. Nearly two years ago, we told you we would establish a path to effect an orderly turndown of legacy copper services by the end of the decade. In my view, we’ve now reached the tipping point, and that goal is firmly in sight.”
Stankey pointed to the FCC’s approval in June to wind down copper-based services in parts of California, which will affect around 60 percent of its wire centers, allowing AT&T to “upgrade our customers to AT&T phone advanced, fiber and wireless.” He did not say customers on copper-based networks will have access to fiber, and his comments implied that some of those customers might only have AT&T Internet Air as an alternative.
Pulling out more broadly, AT&T said its fiber-based average revenue per user (ARPU) dipped more than 1 percent on a year-over basis due to its acquisition of Lumen Technology, whose fiber customers have lower ARPU compared to AT&T’s own. When excluding AT&T’s new customers from the Lumen deal, ARPU was flat compared to the prior year.
“As we said before, our goal is not to maximize ARPU of individual products, but instead to maximize total Advanced Connectivity service revenues in order to drive attractive returns on our investments in 5G and fiber, and we are expecting continued strong growth in service revenue,” AT&T Chief Financial Officer Pascal Desroches said on Wednesday.
