AT&T (NYSE: T) reported net domestic pay-TV customer losses of 49,000, with a strong gain of 342,000 DirecTV satellite subscribers being more than offset by losses of 391,000 U-verse TV users in the second quarter.
A year after closing its $49 billion acquisition of DirecTV, AT&T said it has added more than 1 million subscribers to the satellite service in the last 12 months. More than 80 percent of AT&T's video users are now on DirecTV, the company added.
AT&T ended the second quarter with an industry-leading 25.3 million pay-TV subscribers.
"It's been one year after our acquisition of DirecTV, and we're very pleased about where we stand," AT&T CFO John Stephens said.
With AT&T's cost synergy goals for the DirecTV acquisition on track, Stephens said he's confident upcoming DirecTV-branded streaming services will further expand AT&T's bottom line.
"We expect millions of people who don't now subscribe to video and prefer a streaming service to be impressed," he said to investors.
Stephens said the virtual "DirecTV Now" service is on target to launch by the end of the year. "We want to make sure it comes out with a high level of technology and performance, and we need to get the stacking rights and digital rights. Those things are going well," he said.
Housed on the same bottom line as pay-TV, with AT&T's Entertainment Group, the company lost 110,000 broadband customers in the second quarter, with gains of 54,000 IP broadband users offset by losses of 164,000 DSL subs.
Overall, AT&T reported a consolidated revenue uptick of 22.7 percent to $40.5 billion. Net income was up 10.6 percent.
For more:
- read this AT&T earnings release
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