SBC Communications Inc reported third quarter earnings yesterday, that beat Wall Street analysts expectations despite increased costs related to the companies PCS services in California and Nevada.
Third quarter earnings, before charges, were $859m, or $0.94 a share, compared with $867m, or $0.94 cents a share a year ago. Analysts had predicted earnings of $0.92 a share, according to First Call.
However, SBC took charges of $43m which the company says is related to the continued integration with Pacific Telesis Corp which it merged with in April and its efforts to meet regulatory requirements for local number portability costs. After charges the third quarter net income was $816m or $0.89 a share. Third quarter revenues were $6.3bn, an increase of 6.5% from $6.0bn in the third quarter of 1996.
Nine-month net income was down 65.4% at $886m, or $0.97 per share, on revenues up 5.8% at 18.27bn compared to $17.30bn last year.
According to SBC, the revenue growth came from gains in access lines at its Southwestern Bell and Pacific Bell subsidiaries, as well as growth in its wireless businesses, particularly in California and Nevada.
The company said access line growth was 4.3%, including 5.9% growth in business lines and 15.6% growth in residential additional lines. SBC said it also added 267,000 new wireless subscribers and now has a total of 5.2 million subscribers.
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