Verizon surprised analysts with its Q1 2026 results, particularly in postpaid phone net adds where the company added 55,000 new customers to garner its first Q1 positive net adds in 13 years.
Impact: Leading up to Verizon’s quarterly earnings call, the company had been rather quiet other than a few appearances by CEO Dan Schulman at various investor conferences and an interview with the Wall Street Journal in which he warned about the threat AI poses to jobs. At the Semafor World Economy Conference in mid-April, he acknowledged that Verizon had lost market share to its rival carriers when he took over last October. He also highlighted Verizon’s push to focus more on the customer with simplified plans and promotions, noting that having the best network is no longer enough to dominate the market, which makes the customer experience that much more important. In general, the quiet around Verizon appears to stem from its focus the large structural changes needed to implement its turnaround strategy. That appears to have paid off at least somewhat in Q1, when the company beat expectations in postpaid phone net adds thanks to improved Q1 consumer postpaid phone net losses (roughly 35,000 according to a comment in the company’s Q1 call transcript) combined with gains on the B2B side and efforts to improve its customer relationships. Total postpaid connections and total wireless connections both declined sequentially, however, which made analysts a bit nervous.
But it’s hard to say just how well Verizon did on the consumer side in any of its broadband segments because the company changed how it reports quarterly subscriber metrics in Q1, providing total subscriber numbers without breaking out business and residential customer gains or losses. Verizon did incorporate Frontier subscriber numbers into its totals for the first time in Q1, ending the quarter with nearly 10.8 million fiber customers. Combined with more than 6 million fixed wireless access subscribers, Verizon’s total broadband base grew to roughly 16.8 million. Fiber broadband net additions came in at 127,000 and combined with 214,000 FWA net adds to increase total broadband gains to 341K. MoffettNathanson estimated that 28,000 Frontier net adds occurred before the deal closed on January 20, which would have pushed real Q1 fiber net adds up to 155,000. Schulman said Verizon plans to reach 32 million fiber passings by year-end as it accelerates deployments to meet its goal of 40 million to 50 million passings “over the medium term” and wants to put more focus into the fiber business, which he views as a “key differentiator” against other providers with “inherent advantages” not found with other technologies. Total FWA net adds were a different story, declining both 30.5% YOY and 32.9% sequentially and coming in below analysts’ expectations. This indicates FWA subscriber growth continues to slow, though the company remains on track to reach 8-9 million FWA customers by year-end 2028 and had more FWA capacity available at the beginning of 2026 than it did a year ago thanks to ongoing C-band deployments.
Verizon also indicated that it doesn’t have any plans to enter into an MVNO agreement with Starlink, mirroring comments from AT&T and T-Mobile on the subject. A spokesperson confirmed Verizon’s stance on the matter in a statement to Fierce Network after the topic didn’t get addressed during Verizon’s earnings call. Verizon also said that it views satellite communications as “complementary” to terrestrial mobile service in certain areas and strongly implied Starlink wouldn’t meet the criteria Verizon looks for in an MVNO partner, in part because it wouldn’t deliver access to any new market segment or help grow its subscriber base. The question now appears to be whether all three carriers will continue to hold that position in the future if SpaceX tries to ramp up the MVNO pressure on one or all of them. It appears likely that the big three will stand firm to protect the terrestrial wireless industry as a whole, but analysts hinted that may not be possible to maintain in the long term.
The focus on fiber should help Verizon boost its convergence numbers, particularly in the acquired Frontier footprint where Verizon sees myriad cross-sell opportunities to bundle broadband with mobile. Schulman also hinted that Verizon could look at additional M&A deals to reach its fiber and coverage goals. But that’s not to say Verizon plans to abandon FWA to ramp up its focus on fiber; it plans to continue pushing forward in that segment too. The closure of Verizon’s Starry acquisition and a shift to a more MDU focus for FWA could help the company find more sub growth in that segment in the coming quarters, particularly if Verizon’s focus on the customer raises retention rates and pulls in new subscribers.
