Citing improved revenue trends, expanded margins and solid growth in cash flow, Qwest Communications reported Q3 revenue of $3.45 billion, a 0.2 percent increase sequentially and a 3.4 percent decrease from third quarter 2003. The fully diluted loss per share was $0.31 compared with a loss of $0.43 cents last quarter, which includes special items of $0.16 and $0.27, respectively.
Some highlights:
- wireline revenue totaled $3.3 billion, up 0.1 percent sequentially and down 2.9 percent from a year ago.
- wireless revenue increased to $132 million in the third quarter, up 3.1 percent sequentially and 13.2 percent lower year-over-year.
- added 102,000 DSL lines, up 12 percent sequentially, to a total of 956,000 subscribers. The company is expanding its retail channel distribution with Office Depot, Best Buy, Staples, Comp USA, and Micro Center.
- deployed approximately 700 remote terminals during the quarter, expanding DSL availability to more than 6.2 million households, or 63 percent of households within its operating region. The company is on track to meet its DSL service availability goal of 65 percent of households within its operating territory by year end.
- total access line loss improved to 1 percent sequentially and stabilized at 4.1 percent year-over-year. Consumer access line loss improved to 1.4 percent sequentially, or half the rate of loss in the second quarter. The company cited bundling, aggressive win-back programs and alternate acquisition channel initiatives for the improved trending.
- primary retail consumer access lines declined by 86,000. This compares to a decline of 218,000 lines in the second quarter, and is the company's smallest decline in five quarters.
- business retail access lines declined 0.4 percent sequentially and 4.9 percent compared to the third quarter of 2003.
- total UNE-P lines increased by 8,000 -- a significant improvement from an increase of 125,000 in the second quarter and 138,000 in the third quarter of 2003.
- long-distance voice revenues increased 11 percent sequentially and total long-distance lines increased by 339,000 or 8 percent. Qwest ended the quarter with 4.4 million long-distance lines, up from 1.7 million a year ago.
- Qwest is currently carrying 2.1 billion minutes per month of VoIP traffic over its national IP network.
