Qwest Communications reported Q4 revenue of $3.5 billion, a 5.6% decrease from Q4 of 2002. For the full year, revenue was $14.3 billion compared to $15.4 billion for 2002, or a decline of 7%. The net loss for the fourth quarter was $307 million, or $0.17 per diluted share. Some highlights of the report:
- Access line loss continued at the same rate as Q3 2003. Total access lines, excluding the impact of 145,000 MCI lines disconnected in Q2, decreased by 3.9 percent year-over-year compared to 4.4 percent in the fourth quarter of 2002. Sequentially, access lines declined 0.9 percent for both the third and fourth quarters of 2003. The company said since launching its consumer bundle, the average consumer primary line losses have improved more than 30%.
- added 60,000 DSL lines in Q4, giving Qwest a total of 637,000 lines at the end of the year. Qwest plans to expand the DSL coverage area from 45% to more than 60% of total access lines by the end of 2004.
- Qwest plans to introduce stand-alone DSL service for customers who no longer require traditional phone service. Stand-alone DSL would allow customers to purchase only the services they want or need, including VoIP.
- Qwest plans to expand its VoIP coverage to the entire Minneapolis/St. Paul consumer market and introduce its business VoIP offering in the first half of 2004. Plans are in place to offer VoIP services in all major metropolitan markets within Qwest's local region by the end of 2004.
- CAPEX for Q4 was $615 million, compared to $561 million for Q4 2002. For full year 2003, CAPEX was $2.1 billion, compared to $2.8 billion in 2002.
