Verizon Chairman and CEO Lowell McAdam Thursday said his company’s wireless business is seeing a dramatic turn around in postpaid customer additions after a fall off in the first quarter of 2014.
During an interview with CNBC that was reported by Seeking Alpha, McAdam said that Verizon’s postpaid customer additions in the second quarter rose dramatically to 1.4 million from the disappointing 539,000 the carrier reported in the previous quarter. He even indicated second quarter numbers were up from the roughly 941,000 Verizon reported in the second quarter of last year.
Both Verizon and AT&T saw pressure on customer numbers in the first quarter of the year quarter, which could have been at least partially due to T-Mobile’s disruptive promotions. AT&T marked just 625,000 postpaid additions in the first quarter.
Shares of Verizon were up on over a percent on the comments to $49.
In a video posted online, McAdam also commented on whether Verizon might be interested in buying satellite TV provider Dish. He said that while Dish has some “great” spectrum, he couldn’t forsee a scenario where owning a satellite company makes sense for Verizon.
Verizon is scheduled to report its second quarter earnings on July 22.