Verizon may have largely stayed out of the price wars, but the company is still in search of a growth story.
CEO Lowell McAdam and other Verizon executives spoke to financial analysts Tuesday at Verizon’s headquarters to lay out how the company sees future opportunities.
According to Seeking Alpha, executives at the meeting said Verizon will stay away from any major acquisitions but would continue to consider strategic options. McAdam reportedly said he would like Verizon to be “the FedEx for the digital age,” by generating GDP-plus revenue growth in three to five years.
McAdam has stressed that Verizon will lean heavily on video and connecting the Internet of Things (IoT) going forward as postpaid subscriber additions continue to slow across the board.
Citing BTIG’s Walter Piecyk, Seeking Alpha reported McAdam was skeptical that the move towards offering customers a quad play, or bundled service, had any real benefits.
As far back as 2012, McAdam has touted video as the future of wireless, and the company’s recently launched Go90 service appears evidence that the company believes that to be true.
But even as consumers watch more video on their mobile devices, AT&T continues to lead the way on IoT. AT&T net postpaid additions were dwarfed in the third quarter by those reported from T-Mobile and Verizon, but Wall Street didn’t blink. AT&T’s concentration on expanding into the world of connected everything has bolstered confidence in the company’s vision of the future as it managed a record 1.6 million net connected device additions, 1 million of which were connected cars.
Verizon isn’t blind to the shift towards IoT. The company last week rolled out a new IoT platform aimed at facilitating new connected solutions by opening up more network APIs for developers.
Shares of Verizon were down slightly in afternoon trading to $46.39.