AT&T (T) Issues Mixed Q4 Numbers; Says 81% of Smartphone Sales in Q4 Were iPhones

AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) shares are indicated lower following fourth-quarter 2011 numbers which saw mixed results on increased smartphone sales.

Revenue for AT&T rose 3.6 percent from $31.36 billion in the same quarter in 2010 to $32.50 billion, beating views calling for revs of $31.95 billion.

AT&T swung from net income of $1.16 billion in the year-ago quarter to a loss of $6.63 billion, or $1.12 per share. Adjusting for certain items like asset impairments and severance, AT&T reported EPS of 42 cents, which missed views by just 1 cent.

Smartphone sales were the story for AT&T; the company reported 82 percent of postpaid sales were smartphones, leading to sales of 9.4 million units. Of the total, 7.6 million smartphones were Apple's (Nasdaq: AAPL) iPhones, with that majority being the iPhone 4S.

Wireless stats:

• Added 2.5 million net subs for a total of 103.2 million. Postpaid adds were 717,000 while prepaid adds were 153,000, comected device adds were 1.03 million, and reseller net adds were 592,000.
  
  
• At the end of the quarter, 56.8 percent of AT&T's 69.3 million postpaid subscribers had smartphones, up from 42.7 percent a year earlier.
  
  
• Revs popped 10 percent to $16.7 billion.
  
  
• ARPU rose 1.4 percent to $63.76.
  
  
• Postpaid churn moved to 1.21 percent.
  
  
• Operating income margin moved from 22.9 percent to 15.2 percent.

Wireline stats:

• Revs fell 1.4 percent to $14.9 billion, while expenses fell just 0.2 percent to $13.1 billion.
  
  
• U-Verse adds 208,000 subs to total of 3.8 million.
  
  
• AT&T's U-verse deployment has reached its goal of passing 30 million living units.
  
  
• Wirelines revs per household rose 7 percent.

Looking ahead, AT&T sees continued consolidated revenue growth, including postpaid wireless ARPU growth around 2 percent for fiscal 2012. The company also expects to expand consolidated and wireless margins while keeping wireline margins stable.

Shares of AT&T are down about 1.6 percent early Thursday.

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