Verizon Adds 406,000 Phone Subscribers, Raises Annual Forecast and Signs AWS Deal
Key Facts
Verizon added about 406,000 net postpaid phone subscribers in the third quarter of 2026, an increase of more than 820% year over year and its strongest performance for the quarter in five years, according to the company’s filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The figure was nearly double Visible Alpha’s estimate of 209,439 additions, Reuters reported via Investing.com. The company also recorded 137,000 net postpaid account additions, its best performance in more than a decade. Verizon raised its full-year forecast for phone subscriber additions to 1.1–1.2 million, from a previous range of 750,000 to 1 million. It also raised its adjusted earnings-per-share forecast to $5.04–$5.06, compared with its previous range of $4.99–$5.04. The results reflect a divergence between subscriber acquisition and revenue growth: the former exceeded analyst expectations, while revenue fell short of their estimates.
Operating revenue was $34.3 billion in the quarter, up 1.5% year over year, while net income rose 5.2% to $5.3 billion. Adjusted earnings per share increased 8.3% to $1.31, according to Verizon’s filing. But revenue fell short of analysts’ estimate of $34.74 billion, according to LSEG data cited by Reuters via Investing.com. The company attributed revenue pressure to lower device upgrade volumes, as customers kept their phones longer. Reuters linked this to Verizon’s reduction in device subsidies, which reduced the incentive to replace phones. Device subsidies were part of the company’s shift toward offers focused on attracting and retaining customers.
CEO Dan Schulman said Verizon is prioritizing customer-focused offers, such as Simplicity and its expanded loyalty program, over large device subsidies. In the company’s filing, he added: "By prioritizing customer-first offers like Simplicity and our expanded loyalty program over large device subsidies, we are winning loyal, high-value customers." Mobility and broadband services revenue rose 2.9% to about $23.5 billion in the third quarter, according to the filing. The postpaid phone churn rate improved by 4 basis points to 0.94%. These indicators show that services growth accompanied improved subscriber retention, even as device revenue declined. Verizon also added 314,000 net broadband connections, including 159,000 fixed wireless and 155,000 fiber connections.
Phone additions in the third quarter were higher than in the prior quarter, when Verizon added 184,000 net postpaid subscribers and recorded more than 550,000 gross additions across mobility and broadband services in the second quarter of 2026. This sequence provides context for improved subscriber acquisition, with phone additions rising to 406,000 in the following quarter. The company had said mobility and broadband services revenue growth was 2.8% in the second quarter. At the time, it expected growth to approach 4% in the fourth quarter of 2026. This trajectory puts the year-end services growth target above the pace recorded in the second quarter, while the filing cited here did not provide a fourth-quarter result.
Alongside its telecommunications business, Verizon signed an agreement worth more than $2 billion with Amazon Web Services to expand distributed computing and meet the real-time requirements of generative and agentic AI workloads. The company said the agreement establishes a commercial framework for expanding these capabilities. Verizon previously announced an agreement worth more than $1 billion with Google in July to connect data centers through dark fiber, Reuters reported via Investing.com. These agreements point to the company’s expansion into connectivity and computing infrastructure linked to data centers, alongside phone and broadband services. VZ shares closed at about $44.66 on October 23, 2026, according to EL7 data, before the third-quarter results were announced on October 26. That closing price therefore does not represent a share-price reaction to the results or the AWS agreement.