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34th Annual Media, Internet & Telecom Conference

Mar 10, 2026

Bryan Kraft
Lead Equity Research Analyst of Media, Telecom, Cable, and Video Games, Deutsche Bank

Okay. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us for our first session this morning. I'm really pleased to introduce Tony Skiadas, who's the Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Verizon. Tony, welcome.

Tony Skiadas
EVP and CFO, Verizon

Thank you. Thank you for hosting us, Bryan.

Bryan Kraft
Lead Equity Research Analyst of Media, Telecom, Cable, and Video Games, Deutsche Bank

Before we get started, I think you've got some safe harbor language you want to share.

Tony Skiadas
EVP and CFO, Verizon

Sure. Just wanted to mention that Verizon safe harbor statement and SEC filings are on our investor relations website, and comments that we may make are forward-looking in nature and subject to risks and uncertainties. With that, we can get going. Thanks for hosting.

Bryan Kraft
Lead Equity Research Analyst of Media, Telecom, Cable, and Video Games, Deutsche Bank

That'd be great. Yep. Our pleasure. Maybe to start off, can you give us just some perspective on the transformation that Dan Schulman commenced after taking on the CEO role in October? What are some of the goals the management team is trying to achieve with it, and how will that accrue to the company and shareholders in terms of benefits?

Tony Skiadas
EVP and CFO, Verizon

Sure. We have a lot going on, as you've heard. You know, we're creating a new Verizon and with the goal of being the best and playing to win. As Dan outlined on the earnings call back in January, he talked about the company being at a critical inflection point and making sure that we make significant changes to our culture and shift our culture towards the goals of delighting customers and delivering for shareholders. In doing that, leveraging our network excellence to drive mobility and broadband growth, and doing that in a fiscally responsible way. The last hundred or so days have been filled with a lot of change, but also a renewed sense of excitement and optimism inside the company.

We moved quickly into bold actions to drive $5 billion of cost out of the business. Some of that will be reinvested in the customer, with the remainder flowing to the bottom line. We also took actions to rightsize the organization to make us more agile in serving our customers. From a capital perspective, we really sharpened our capital envelope to focus on mobility and broadband and driving about $4 billion in savings along the way. Lastly, we also gave guidance for 2026, which is a significant improvement over what you've seen from us in the past. We're very excited about the future and, you know, in process of executing our plans.

Bryan Kraft
Lead Equity Research Analyst of Media, Telecom, Cable, and Video Games, Deutsche Bank

What about your priorities this year in the context of that overarching plan for the company?

Tony Skiadas
EVP and CFO, Verizon

Sure. If I start at the top of the house, the team is very aligned on growing both mobility and broadband, and as I said, you know, doing it through sustainable, volume-based growth. That's extremely important for us. Second is around executing on our transformation. A lot of work ongoing with the customer experience and improving the customer experience, and also doing that through loyalty and churn improvements as well. Part of that transformation includes executing on our Frontier integration. We closed on Frontier back on January 12th, so we're in the middle of that integration work right now, and that's going extremely well. Thirdly is continuing our network excellence, and that includes deploying C-Band and also continuing to build fiber.

If I dive down into my priorities, I have three of them. First is to support the leaders in the business and narrow our focus to both operational performance and execution day in and day out. I think you saw that in our performance in the fourth quarter. Second is delivering on our guidance for the year. If I can give you a little color on that, we gave guidance on volumes, net adds in terms of 750,000-1 million retail postpaid net adds in the year. Service revenue, mobility and broadband service revenue of 2%-3%. We said 2026 will be a transitional year for wireless service revenue as we build up sustainable volumes.

Adjusted EPS 4%-5% growth is our expectation, and that's a significant improvement over where we've been the last few years. Cash flow, we said at least 7% growth. We have industry-leading cash flows, so at least $21.5 billion. You know, those cash flows bring us to my third priority, which is executing on our capital allocation framework. Having strong cash flows allows us to execute on all four pillars of our framework, including a share buyback program that we announced earlier. We're very excited about it and focusing on executing.

Bryan Kraft
Lead Equity Research Analyst of Media, Telecom, Cable, and Video Games, Deutsche Bank

All right. You've talked about the plans and some of the targets for the year. Can you talk about the progress that you've made so far against the plan and how we should see those progress over the course of the year?

Tony Skiadas
EVP and CFO, Verizon

Sure. When Dan came in, he had a vision for the company, and that vision and that plan is both bold and transformative. It's very customer-centric, but it's also focused on delighting the customer and delivering and returning capital to shareholders. It's both. Those can go very much hand in hand. I think you know, leveraging our network excellence is extremely important and foundational for us to do that and growing volumes in a very fiscally responsible way. I think when you saw the fourth quarter results, we put up strong volumes, we put on over 1 million net adds in terms of mobility and broadband, we took meaningful share, and we delivered on our financial guidance.

Those were the early glimpses of the work that's ongoing. We're very early in our transformation right now. A lot of the work that's, you know, forthcoming and what you alluded to is around the customer experience and improving the customer experience and investing in that as well to make sure that, you know, we can continue to reduce churn, deploying AI to improve our operations, to make us more agile in serving our customers, and also having a value prop that resonates with customers and is simple for customers to understand. When you put that all together, you know, with the sustainable volume growth, we'll be able to, you know, exit the year in a stronger place than where we started.

Bryan Kraft
Lead Equity Research Analyst of Media, Telecom, Cable, and Video Games, Deutsche Bank

Yeah. You've talked about the $5 billion in cost savings this year. How are those savings being redeployed to support the strategy?

Tony Skiadas
EVP and CFO, Verizon

Sure. We took actions pretty quickly back in the fourth quarter to drive $5 billion of cost out of the business, and that gives us a lot of flexibility. It gives us flexibility to invest in the customer, it gives us flexibility to drop some to the bottom line as well. In terms of, let me just dive a little bit on where some of those costs are coming from. You know, first, on the network side, if you think about legacy network decommissioning, a lot of work being done there. If you think about the copper networks that we have, continuing to get copper out of the network, including Frontier as well, and we have a lot of opportunities there in reducing access costs.

From a customer experience I mentioned, continuing to take calls out of the system, you know, that's a big driver of cost, continuing to improve, you know, customer experience. Then on, you know, from an IT and real estate perspective, continuing to reduce the IT stacks, deploying AI to make us more agile in serving customers, and then reducing real estate both on the network side, network facilities, and also admin facilities as well. On the marketing side, you know, now that we have Frontier in the fold as well, being very efficient and smart with our marketing spend. Then from a workforce standpoint, we talked about the workforce reductions that we had in the fourth quarter, about 13,000. Most of those folks are off payroll now in Q1.

We also reduced significantly our contract and third-party spend as well. Then lastly, from a Frontier perspective, we talked about on the earnings call doubling the synergy target. We said at least $1 billion of operating expense run rate synergies, you know, by 2028, and those synergies will ramp over time. When you put that together and you look at it from an EBITDA standpoint, the work that we're doing and the cost out work that we're doing enables us to do a number of things. You know, first, it allows us to run more leaner and more agile. It allows us to invest in the customer experience, and we think that's, you know, extremely important. It allows us to absorb the transitional year in service revenue, and it allows us to return capital to shareholders. That EBITDA growth is really what's underpinning the adjusted EPS guide that we gave this year.

Bryan Kraft
Lead Equity Research Analyst of Media, Telecom, Cable, and Video Games, Deutsche Bank

How much of the volume improvement strategy is intended to deliver the 750,000-1 million postpaid phone net add guidance do you expect to be driven by lower churn versus higher gross adds? Where, you know, really is the greater opportunity and focus there?

Tony Skiadas
EVP and CFO, Verizon

Sure. We gave guidance for 750,000-1 million postpaid net adds. It's two to three times what we did in 2025. If you think about our performance in 2025, you know, our share of net adds was in the low single digits, maybe 4%, depending on how you do the math. This year we expect to significantly improve upon that and do it in a very fiscally responsible way. You know, we see a lot of opportunities with churn. To your question around churn versus gross adds, you know, our focus is really on retention and churn improvements.

We think, you know, for example, if we can, you know, reduce our churn by 5 basis points, that gets us more than halfway to our net add target for the year. If we do that, we can be much more targeted and much more surgical with our promotional spend to drive the other half of the volume growth. You know, we're putting money behind this, with the cost takeouts and the efficiency work that we're doing to improve our churn and do it in a smart way. We said, you know, we're going to deliver volumes in a fiscally responsible manner, and we think we can do it through churn improvements.

Bryan Kraft
Lead Equity Research Analyst of Media, Telecom, Cable, and Video Games, Deutsche Bank

How achievable is that churn improvement opportunity, though? You know, what's the timeline look like for bringing that down, and what are some of the tactics that you can employ to do that?

Tony Skiadas
EVP and CFO, Verizon

Yeah, sure. We've been getting after it right out of the gate. You know, a lot of work ongoing right now. In terms of the tactics and what's driving it, there's a few factors there. I would say first is around some of the pricing moves that we did in the past. We did a number of pricing changes. While they've been a good tailwind to revenue, they have put pressure on churn, and that forces us to, you know, try to put more promotional dollars in to get after growth. So, you know, that's not necessarily the most sustainable strategy. While I can't talk about what we might do from a pricing perspective in the future, we'll always evaluate pricing with the corresponding value prop. That's something we're very mindful of.

When we think about customer experience and customers being frustrated, you know, customers calling in multiple times, for example, that's not a good experience. That drives churn. That drives significant churn. Customer doesn't understand their bill or their promotion. We've made it too complex for them to do business with us. Those are areas we're getting after. Convergence, and we see a lot of opportunity with convergence, and even particularly now with Frontier in the mix as well. When we have a converged customer, we see significant improvements in churn, a 30% reduction in churn when we have a converged customer. There's a lot of ways to get after it.

Because, you know, we continue to have, you know, cost takeouts, we have the flexibility to invest in some of these areas to make sure we drive it down.

Bryan Kraft
Lead Equity Research Analyst of Media, Telecom, Cable, and Video Games, Deutsche Bank

Okay. Your guidance for 2%-3% service revenue growth includes flat wireless services revenue growth, which implies some modest ARPU and ARPA pressure in 2026, which I think you alluded to already. What's driving that pressure? Can you give us more detail on that? How should investors think about the longer-term ARPU trend? Do you expect ARPU to grow again in 2027? You know, how are you thinking about that?

Tony Skiadas
EVP and CFO, Verizon

Sure. Our guidance for mobility and broadband service revenue is 2%-3%, and that includes Frontier. It really reflects, you know, our focus on both mobility and broadband being the drivers of our growth strategy. What we said is 2026 would be a transitional year for wireless service revenue as we make that pivot towards driving sustainable volume-based growth. In terms of your question around some of the pressures we see this year, you know, we have the ongoing, you know, promo amortization pressure that we've seen from the last couple of years. That's gonna be there. Also, we're lapping pricing actions from last year, and that'll put about 180 basis points of pressure on our revenue as well.

Combating that, there's a number of ways to combat that. First, if you think about having perks in our portfolio, you know, last year, you know, we exceeded 15 million perks. Those perks give great value to customers. They're also, you know, great revenue and great margin for us. Continuing to penetrate the base with perks. You know, customers stepping up to premium plans is also another way. Our customers taking adjacent services such as handset insurance. Also, we've seen improvements in our prepaid business and, you know, after several quarters now of volume growth, we're starting to see revenue growth as well. On the mobility side, I think we have ways to stabilize that this year.

On the broadband side, we have over 16 million broadband subs in the base now when you include Frontier. Frontier did a great job. They added about 500,000 fiber subs this past year. We see a lot of opportunity with convergence and growing both fiber and Fixed Wireless Access, and both of them are keys to our growth strategy. We're getting after it. As soon as we closed the deal, we had convergence offers in market within 48 hours, and we're getting after it with a sense of urgency.

Bryan Kraft
Lead Equity Research Analyst of Media, Telecom, Cable, and Video Games, Deutsche Bank

I wanted to ask you about the fourth quarter, the promotional environment. I think Verizon was fairly aggressive in the quarter with promotions. Some would say more aggressive than warranted by the economics of the customers. Do you agree with that view, and will we see Verizon continue to be that aggressive on the acquisition side?

Tony Skiadas
EVP and CFO, Verizon

Yeah, Bryan, here's how we think about it. We had a strong fourth quarter. We delivered over 1 million net adds across both mobility and broadband. We took share in our broadband business. We also delivered on our raised financial guidance. A few reasons for that, you know, we had offers that resonated in the market. To your question, you know, we matched competitor offers. We had strong execution in the field, the sales team did a great job, so that was extremely important for us. We had a consistent presence in the market, which is something different than where we had been earlier in the year. Those three factors contributed to a strong fourth quarter.

You know, as we look ahead, we said we're gonna drive, you know, sustainable volume growth but be financially disciplined. I think when, you know, when you look back on the fourth quarter, we had strong volumes, we had full year EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDA of $50 billion, and we had industry-leading cash flow. I think the outcome speaks for itself.

Bryan Kraft
Lead Equity Research Analyst of Media, Telecom, Cable, and Video Games, Deutsche Bank

Yeah. Okay. What have you been seeing in the market during the first quarter in terms of industry switching, retail store traffic, promotion levels? You know, talk about the competitive environment a little bit there.

Tony Skiadas
EVP and CFO, Verizon

Yeah, sure. I mean, it's still a competitive environment. That hasn't changed. You know, we don't give quarterly guidance, so I'm not gonna share any quarterly guidance. In terms of from what we're doing, you know, we have a consistent presence in the market, and we saw that in the fourth quarter, we see that in the first quarter. We're continuing to focus on making sure that we execute well in the field.

Bryan Kraft
Lead Equity Research Analyst of Media, Telecom, Cable, and Video Games, Deutsche Bank

Mm-hmm

Tony Skiadas
EVP and CFO, Verizon

Day in and day out. Look, you know, the goal here is to grow year-over-year. The volumes will follow a normal seasonal pattern. We're gonna be very fiscally responsible as we do that as outlined.

Bryan Kraft
Lead Equity Research Analyst of Media, Telecom, Cable, and Video Games, Deutsche Bank

Okay. You just closed the Frontier acquisition in January. Can you walk us through your strategy in fiber to premises broadband, the current footprint, your build pace and, you know, your longer-term targets there?

Tony Skiadas
EVP and CFO, Verizon

Sure. So we're very pleased that we finally got the Frontier deal closed on January 12th. It was a long road, but we got there. You know, kudos to the Frontier team too for you know, keeping the business in great shape during that period of time. The Frontier team executed extremely well during that pendency period, so we're very happy with the asset. You know, now with the deal closed, we have over 30 million premises passed with fiber in our footprint, which is great to see. In terms of your question around build pace, we expect this year that we have around 2 million premises passed with fiber, and that's across the entirety of the footprint.

We have a number of ways to get there, whether it's with our own organic build within the combined footprint or whether with partners like Tillman, who allow us to you know also build outside the footprint to our specifications and with really good economics. What we said is over the medium term we expect to pass 40 million-50 million homes with fiber and do that in a very efficient way. We see the power of convergence and the converged customer is a very sticky customer. As I said, we're you know now that the deal is closed we're getting after it with urgency and we're also you know knee-deep in the integration as well.

Bryan Kraft
Lead Equity Research Analyst of Media, Telecom, Cable, and Video Games, Deutsche Bank

Okay. What about penetration levels? What kind of penetration do you think the company can achieve across the fiber footprint? What's the opportunity for ARPU growth and conversions that you see in the broadband business?

Tony Skiadas
EVP and CFO, Verizon

Sure. We have, as you know, we have 20 years of experience building fiber with Fios.

Bryan Kraft
Lead Equity Research Analyst of Media, Telecom, Cable, and Video Games, Deutsche Bank

Mm-hmm.

Tony Skiadas
EVP and CFO, Verizon

Our Fios product is the best-in-class product. We're extremely proud of it. Fios is still growing 20 years later.

Bryan Kraft
Lead Equity Research Analyst of Media, Telecom, Cable, and Video Games, Deutsche Bank

Yeah.

Tony Skiadas
EVP and CFO, Verizon

We know how to build fiber. We know what excellent looks like, you know. You know, in our most mature Fios markets, we have penetration rates that are in the high 40% range. When we look at the Frontier footprint, you know, we think there's upside to what we have there, and we think we can improve upon that, and that's really the goal there, doing it in an efficient way. You know, we're gonna look at the fiber build, we're gonna see where the best return is, and that could be in the Verizon footprint, it could be in the Frontier footprint.

You know, we'll look at build economics, we'll look at, you know, geography, you know, cost per prem pass, et cetera. You know, we're gonna get after it with urgency, and, you know, we're not stopping. We're very pleased with, you know, what we have done with Fios, and we think we can bring the best of Fios into the Frontier footprint as well.

Bryan Kraft
Lead Equity Research Analyst of Media, Telecom, Cable, and Video Games, Deutsche Bank

I forget if you've said, does the 2 million accelerate after this year, or is it?

Tony Skiadas
EVP and CFO, Verizon

We haven't given a target beyond that.

Bryan Kraft
Lead Equity Research Analyst of Media, Telecom, Cable, and Video Games, Deutsche Bank

Okay

Tony Skiadas
EVP and CFO, Verizon

Bryan. We're not stopping. I mean, I think the message that we've given is, you know, we're being very focused on, you know, driving mobility and broadband, and we're not stopping with our fiber build. We're gonna continue.

Bryan Kraft
Lead Equity Research Analyst of Media, Telecom, Cable, and Video Games, Deutsche Bank

Okay. How should we think about the growth outlook for Verizon's Fixed Wireless Access product? Do you expect any re-acceleration in the pace of growth there?

Tony Skiadas
EVP and CFO, Verizon

Yeah. With Fixed Wireless Access, what we've said is, you know, we're building a long-term sustainable business with plenty of runway, and that's what we're doing. In 2025, we added about 1.2 million fixed wireless net adds, and our base of business right now is over 5.7 million FWA customers. Customers are very happy with the product. It's a great revenue stream. When I think about the network, you know, our engineers do a fantastic job in engineering the network with capacity that's, you know, way out in front of the demand that's out there. We're entering 2026 with more capacity on Fixed Wireless Access than we entered 2025. I feel really good about that.

The shape of growth for Fixed Wireless Access, to your question, will probably follow seasonal patterns with mobility. It's generally sold with mobility, so y ou would expect it to follow that sort of trend. Then when you think about some of the other work we're doing with multi-dwelling units, we just completed our acquisition of Starry, and that'll help us expand our product there in the MDU space and give us more open for sale on Fixed Wireless Access. You know, we're very happy with the product and, you know, as I said, customers love it and, you know, we can do FWA and fiber at scale and that's what we're doing.

Bryan Kraft
Lead Equity Research Analyst of Media, Telecom, Cable, and Video Games, Deutsche Bank

Okay. Maybe you could talk about, you know, just free cash flow growth a bit. Despite a number of areas where you're investing, where, you know, what you talked about, you've guided to a decline in CapEx this year and free cash flow growth of about $1.5 billion or more. How are you achieving the CapEx savings, especially, you know, now that you're bringing Frontier into the company and the asset base is growing?

Tony Skiadas
EVP and CFO, Verizon

Sure. You know, our first priority is to invest in the business and that's what we're doing. Our CapEx envelope for this year, we said is $16 billion-$16.5 billion, is all in and sufficient to address all of our growth initiatives. We've really narrowed our focus to both mobility and broadband platforms. If I start with you know, on the mobility side, if you think about C-Band, we talked about in January, we're about 90% done with our C-Band build, so 90% of our planned sites are now on C-Band. The goal is to substantially complete that C-Band build this year. As we do that build is gonna be with more small cells which come at a lower unit cost. That was planned. We did a lot of this investment in C-Band earlier. We accelerated a lot of that investment in years past, so we're coming towards the end of that with small cells. That's one side of it. On fiber, we just touched on continuing to deploy fiber in the network. We said, you know, 2 million premises passed this year, and focused on doing that in a very efficient way. To your question about, you know, why is it lower? We really took a hard look and we put a lot of rigor both around OpEx and CapEx in narrowing that focus to both mobility and broadband.

In areas not aligned to growth, we actually rationalized and/or eliminated. If you think about some of the legacy areas, if you think about, you know, business wireline, if you think about wholesale, you know, copper areas, there's a lot of, you know, areas that, you know, we don't need to invest in or projects with too long of a payback. We really put a lot of rigor when we put our capital plan together this year, and we're focused on deploying capital in an efficient way, and we know how to do that. That's the focus of it for the team this year.

Bryan Kraft
Lead Equity Research Analyst of Media, Telecom, Cable, and Video Games, Deutsche Bank

Okay. Maybe just to follow up on C-Band, if you don't mind.

Tony Skiadas
EVP and CFO, Verizon

Sure.

Bryan Kraft
Lead Equity Research Analyst of Media, Telecom, Cable, and Video Games, Deutsche Bank

You know, you talked about it being predominantly small cell. Is that because you've already deployed on the macro cells and now you're filling in?

Tony Skiadas
EVP and CFO, Verizon

Yeah, we're filling in at this point. You know, as I said, a lot of the investment, we accelerated a lot of that investment and we have over 300 million POPs now on C-Band, so we're getting towards the end of that build, and it's mostly around densifying now, so.

Bryan Kraft
Lead Equity Research Analyst of Media, Telecom, Cable, and Video Games, Deutsche Bank

Okay.

Tony Skiadas
EVP and CFO, Verizon

We're very happy with the performance. We see great performance on C-Band and, you know, we also see lower churn as well where we have C-Band deployed.

Bryan Kraft
Lead Equity Research Analyst of Media, Telecom, Cable, and Video Games, Deutsche Bank

Right. Maybe you could just walk us through the bigger moving pieces this year for free cash flow bridge.

Tony Skiadas
EVP and CFO, Verizon

Sure. If I start at the top, you know, we really have strong cash flow generation in the business, and we like the cash generation in the business. You know, we have industry-leading free cash flows. You know, coming into the year, underpinning that is a strong EBIT profile, and our Adjusted EBITT last year was about $50 billion. When you bring Frontier's base of business into the fold, they had a good EBIT profile as well, so that's helpful. You take the you know, the cost work that we're doing, the $5 billion of cost work. We have about $4 billion in CapEx savings. You put back the investment in the customer. Those are the big you know, moving pieces.

In terms of some of the puts and takes, we talked about our CapEx envelope being $16 billion-$16.5 billion. So we're gonna be very focused there. From an interest expense perspective, we're absorbing about $1 billion of interest costs related to the debt that we took on with Frontier. So we have that in the mix. From a working capital perspective, you know, our goal is to continue to improve our working capital profile. We do see about $800 million of year-over-year pressure from the severance payments that we'll make in the first quarter related to the headcount actions that we took at the end of last year.

From a cash tax perspective, we said that we see cash taxes being up slightly year-over-year as we look at our plans and the attributes we have from Frontier. When you put that all together, the strong work we're doing around cost discipline, around capital efficiency, gives us a strong and growing cash flow profile. We said we'd grow our cash flows at least 7% or over $21.5 billion, which is a very strong outcome. It allows us to execute across all four pillars of our capital allocation strategy.

Bryan Kraft
Lead Equity Research Analyst of Media, Telecom, Cable, and Video Games, Deutsche Bank

You mentioned working capital and trying to improve that. Maybe you could talk about the underlying assumptions in that free cash flow guidance for the working capital investment for upgrades and customer acquisition, especially given that you're trying to bring churn down and I think improve gross adds at the same time, so it seems like there's more volume flowing through.

Tony Skiadas
EVP and CFO, Verizon

Yeah, a couple things here, Bryan. You know, we're not guiding on gross adds or upgrades. I think, you know, that's a tough thing. Upgrades are very tough to forecast. What I would say is this. You know, last year, we saw, you know, double-digit gross add growth. We also saw double-digit upgrade volumes as well, growth and upgrades. We were able to still, you know, absorb all of that and have a very strong cash flow profile, and we delivered on our cash flow or our raised cash flow guidance. This year with the work we're doing to become more flexible from a cost and a capital efficiency standpoint, we plan for various scenarios.

We'll have to see how those scenarios, you know, play out, you know, throughout the year. You know, we have the flexibility to do that, and we said we're gonna make sure that, you know, when we grow, we grow in a fiscally responsible manner.

Bryan Kraft
Lead Equity Research Analyst of Media, Telecom, Cable, and Video Games, Deutsche Bank

Okay. All right. Well, it's probably a good place to wrap up. Oh, no, sorry. A couple more questions.

Tony Skiadas
EVP and CFO, Verizon

Keep going.

Bryan Kraft
Lead Equity Research Analyst of Media, Telecom, Cable, and Video Games, Deutsche Bank

Another page. Business wireless service revenue and customer growth decelerated in 2025, and a lot of that, I think, came from government job cuts with DOGE, as I understand anyway. Can you walk us through the totality of factors that impacted 2025 and maybe share your thoughts on 2026? Are you expecting an improvement this year?

Tony Skiadas
EVP and CFO, Verizon

Yeah. Kyle and the team have done a great job in navigating this environment. I mean, as you mentioned, we did see pressure from the public sector last year with some of the government efficiency efforts, and obviously that put pressure on volume growth. In 2026, we see that returning to more normal levels. A lot of that pressure is now behind us, which is great to see. Kyle and the team are very focused on growing mobility and broadband, but being very disciplined in the growth. You know, we're writing good business, and we're making sure that we're being very disciplined at the deal desk, both on the wireless side and also on the wireline side as well, and you know, de-emphasizing low-margin deals.

The team's also done a great job in taking cost out. We've taken a fair amount of cost out in the last year. That's still ongoing. For the first time in a long time, we had an improved EBITDA margin year-over-year, which is really great to see. As we look ahead, you know, Kyle and the team will continue to focus on growing both the mobility and broadband. Even, you know, Fixed Wireless Access is doing great on the business side and doing that in a very sustainable way. The other thing that Kyle and the team are focused on is what we call AI Connect and, you know, having fiber, you know, both dark fiber, lit fiber. We're seeing a lot of demand for that.

We have some signed deals with hyperscalers and diversifying with other logos. This is something we do well. It's good margin business. You know, we're happy with the deals we see so far. There's a lot of deals in the funnel. We'll see where it goes. You know, that'll hopefully help stem some of the legacy declines that we continue to fight through. You know, by being disciplined and by taking cost out, you know, we continue to see a good opportunity to expand margins there. As I said, Kyle and the team have done a great job.

Bryan Kraft
Lead Equity Research Analyst of Media, Telecom, Cable, and Video Games, Deutsche Bank

Yeah. On the AI opportunity, I mean, I think about a year ago, you were talking about that, and I think it helped in the December 2024 quarter.

Tony Skiadas
EVP and CFO, Verizon

It did.

Bryan Kraft
Lead Equity Research Analyst of Media, Telecom, Cable, and Video Games, Deutsche Bank

We didn't seem to hear a lot about it since then. Is that something that maybe there was a lull, now you're starting to see some re-acceleration or?

Tony Skiadas
EVP and CFO, Verizon

There's a lot of demand, and obviously these, you know, building a fiber route takes time too, and, you know, getting it to specifications that the customer wants, takes work. But we're seeing there's a lot of demand for fiber routes to support the AI economy. You know, we like the business that we see. It's. You know, I like the margins that we're seeing from that business. Obviously, you know, it's early days, but, you know, it can be an enabler to stem a lot of the legacy, you know, wireline MPLS declines that we've seen over the years. You know, Kyle and the team are right on top of that one.

Bryan Kraft
Lead Equity Research Analyst of Media, Telecom, Cable, and Video Games, Deutsche Bank

It sounds like it's mostly build-to-spec business as opposed to.

Tony Skiadas
EVP and CFO, Verizon

In some cases, yes. Yes.

Bryan Kraft
Lead Equity Research Analyst of Media, Telecom, Cable, and Video Games, Deutsche Bank

Okay.

Tony Skiadas
EVP and CFO, Verizon

It could be specific routes, for example. Yes.

Bryan Kraft
Lead Equity Research Analyst of Media, Telecom, Cable, and Video Games, Deutsche Bank

Okay. All right. I wanted to ask you about the wholesale other and prepaid revenue. I think combined, it drove about 100 basis points of the total consumer wireless service revenue in 2025. Just wanted to ask, you know, is it fair to assume that the contribution from those two areas will continue at about that rate, you know, going forward? How are you thinking about that?

Tony Skiadas
EVP and CFO, Verizon

Yeah. Let me start with prepaid. You know, we've had a significant turnaround in our prepaid business. We now have, after several years of declines, we've had six straight quarters of volume growth, which is great to see. That volume growth has translated into revenue growth, which is what I wanted to say, and really healthy and profitable revenue growth as well. That's coming from a couple of places. It's coming from our Visible brand and Total Wireless. Both of those brands are performing extremely well, and we continue to open distribution doors. I'm pleased with the progress that we have on our prepaid business.

To your question on wholesale and MVNOs, I'm a little bit limited in what I can say there, but you know, as you heard, we recently signed a long-term agreement with the cable companies. You know, we're very happy with the partnership. It's on really strong footing. That business is accretive and allows their customers to stay on the best network. You know, we're very happy with the partnership. As I said, I can't talk about the commercial deals, but we're very happy with the partnership with the cable companies.

Bryan Kraft
Lead Equity Research Analyst of Media, Telecom, Cable, and Video Games, Deutsche Bank

Okay. All right. Great. Sounds like the trajectory is still intact, though for those

Tony Skiadas
EVP and CFO, Verizon

Very much so.

Bryan Kraft
Lead Equity Research Analyst of Media, Telecom, Cable, and Video Games, Deutsche Bank

Okay.

Tony Skiadas
EVP and CFO, Verizon

Yes.

Bryan Kraft
Lead Equity Research Analyst of Media, Telecom, Cable, and Video Games, Deutsche Bank

Maybe you could talk about, and this is where we wrap up.

Tony Skiadas
EVP and CFO, Verizon

Oh, okay.

Bryan Kraft
Lead Equity Research Analyst of Media, Telecom, Cable, and Video Games, Deutsche Bank

Capital allocation.

Tony Skiadas
EVP and CFO, Verizon

Sure.

Bryan Kraft
Lead Equity Research Analyst of Media, Telecom, Cable, and Video Games, Deutsche Bank

Talk about capital allocation strategy, plans over the next year or two, you know, dividend, share repurchases, you know, other investments, whether it be potential fiber acquisition, spectrum, et cetera.

Tony Skiadas
EVP and CFO, Verizon

Sure. So our capital allocation framework is both, disciplined and deliberate. We have four capital allocation priorities. Those priorities have not changed, but we've made a number of updates inside of those priorities. Let me just go through them. The first one, as I mentioned upfront, is investing in the business. You know, we talked about our capital envelope of $16 billion-$16.5 billion to both across mobility and broadband. So we're gonna continue to invest in our networks and maintain our network excellence. That's extremely important. Investing in the business also encompasses M&A, and we just closed on Frontier, and we're in the middle of executing on that integration. You know, first and foremost is investing in the business.

Second priority is our commitment to the dividend. I think you heard Dan on the earnings call talk about our commitment to the dividend being ironclad. You know, in January, we raised the dividend for the 20th consecutive year. That's a track record that we are extremely proud of. Our goal is to put the board in a position to continue to raise the dividend per share in the future. That, that's our focus there. Our third priority is a strong balance sheet, and we've done a lot of work in paying down debt. We've been operating inside of our long-term leverage target, our unsecured leverage target of 2.0x-2.25x over the past two quarters.

We just took on the debt from Frontier, so that'll add about a quarter turn on the unsecured metric. What we said is we expect to return to our long-term leverage target in the 2020-2027 timeframe. The focus will be to continue to generate cash and pay down debt. Lastly, our fourth priority is share repurchases. The board authorized up to $25 billion of share repurchases over the next three years, with at least $3 billion of repurchases in 2026. When you put that all together, you know, we have a strong cash flow profile, and that allows us to execute across all four pillars of our capital allocation strategy. We're getting after it with urgency.

Bryan Kraft
Lead Equity Research Analyst of Media, Telecom, Cable, and Video Games, Deutsche Bank

Okay. All right. Great. Thanks, Tony. Thanks, everyone.

Tony Skiadas
EVP and CFO, Verizon

Thank you so much, Bryan.

Bryan Kraft
Lead Equity Research Analyst of Media, Telecom, Cable, and Video Games, Deutsche Bank

Appreciate it.

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