4 Things Verizon Wants Shareholders to Know

Despite the best efforts ofT-Mobile ,a reenergized, if not resurgent, Sprint under new CEO Marcelo Claure, and stiff competition from AT&T , Verizon has managed to maintain its standing as the leading wireless provider -- at least when it comes to subscriber totals.

The company has managed to consistently grow reporting a gain of 1.5 million net retail connectionsin the third quarter while posting $21.8 billion in revenue for the period, up 7% year over year.

Francis Shammo, Verizon's chief financial officer, was interviewed by UBS analystJohn Hodulikat the company's42nd annual Global Media and Communications Conference where he reflected back a little on what has already happened this year and offered some insight into the company's challenges and opportunities going forward.

Verizon has grown consistently despite increasing competition. Source: Verizon

The fourth quarter is going to be bigWhile Shammo noted that the fourth quarter is always an exciting time full of promotions, he expects this year to be busier than usual. The company, Shammo said, has 3.2 millionApple iPhones coming out of contract in addition to the regular cycle of phone contracts that come due. He expects that to lead to a record quarter.

"With our upgrades what we're seeing is we're probably going to exceed for the first time 9.5% in upgrades, and if you think about our base that's a fairly significant volume," he said.

Increased upgrades is a good thing, but it's even better in this as Shammo said he expects 75% of them to be what the company considers "strategic high-value" upgrades. That is "either a customer going from a basic phone to a 4G smartphone or a 3G smartphone to a 4G smartphone.And we know that when we do that, we see an elevation of revenue from those customers."

Subsidies are here to stayThough selling subsidized phones will cut into fourth quarter margin due to the up-front hit the company takes fronting the cost of the phone, that appears to be what most customers still want and Shammo said that Verizon acknowledges that and plans to give it to them. He pegged the rate of Edge customers -- those who pay for their phone in installments at 24% -- meaning that three quarters of the company's customers are still on the subsidy model.

"We'd like to say that we really are concentrating on customer choice as to what the customer really wants, and 75% of the customers are still selecting that subsidy model," he said. It's really a question of whether you book service revenue or device revenue, he explained, noting that some companies are trying to shift toward upping the device side.

He did make a point of saying that customers who buy four lines through Edge will pay about $140 a month (before factoring in phone cost) while people choosing the same plan on a subsidized plan would spend around $260 a month. He used that example to take a dig atSprint, though not by name, which is offering a half-off deal to Verizon and AT&T customers, but only on nonsubsidized plans.

"So when you see these advertisements of 50% off of $260, it's really not that different than just shifting people into a different bucket for different revenues," he said.

Verizon is not worried about the competitionWhile Sprint and T-Mobile are each trying to outdo the other with promotions designed to take customers from AT&T and Verizon, Shammo does not see them as a long-term threat:

That's a bit of an oversimplification as T-Mobile, and to a lesser extent Sprint, have fundamentally changed how they do business, which goes beyond their short-term promotions. Still, Shammo is right that that neither company can afford to endlessly cut prices in order to win customers without running into an eventual cash crisis.

Growth will come in tablets, IOT

Shammo believes that while the phone part of Verizon's business may be mature, a huge opportunity still exists in tablets and connected devices.

"We started this back in 2012 and still on Verizon Wireless only 6.5% of our devices are tablets. So there is still a long runway for tablet growth," he said. "Then you talk about the Internet of Things or machine-to-machine and connected-car, and I know John previously spoke about the same thing, that is increasing the pie for all competitors."

The CFO made it clear that he does not judge success or failure based on net phone adds even if the media tends to. He pointed out that tablet users tend to be "more sticky" and use more data, which makes them more valuable than phone customers.

The article 4 Things Verizon Wants Shareholders to Know originally appeared on Fool.com.

Daniel Kline owns shares of Apple. He is a Sprint customer considering jumping to T-Mobile. The Motley Fool recommends Apple and Verizon Communications,. The Motley Fool owns shares of Apple. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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