Mobile service revenue was up 4.1 percent to USD 15.4 billion, while operating profit fell 7.7 percent to USD 4.7 billion on a double-digit increase in operating costs. AT&T blamed this on higher smartphone sales, which reached 6.8 million units sold in the quarter and are now used by 73 percent of its postpaid customer base. In total, AT&T added a net 632,000 new customers in the quarter, including postpaid adds of 551,000 (of which 398,000 tablets), 484,000 connected devices and 11,000 new prepaid lines. Reseller customers fell by 484,000 in the quarter. The increasing number of tablets led to a slowdown in ARPU, which rose just 1.8 percent.
At the wireline activities, revenues fell 0.9 percent year-on-year to USD 14.8 billion, and operating profit dropped 15.8 percent to USD 1.6 billion. Consumer revenues were still up 2.4 percent to USD 5.8 billion, led by growth in the U-verse services. The U-verse TV base grew by 233,000 in the quarter to 5.0 million customers, and U-verse internet customers were up by 641,000 to 9.1 million. Including DSL, AT&T had a net loss of 61,000 broadband customers. The growing share for U-verse in the customer base (55%) helped broadband ARPU increase 9 percent year-on-year. In the business wireline market, revenues were down 2.2 percent from a year ago to USD 8.9 billion.
