DirecTV posts 1Q profit, but results miss Wall Street estimates

DirecTV on Tuesday reported a first-quarter profit of $730 million, helped by the addition of 279,000 net new subscribers.

The El Segundo, California-based company said it had a profit of $1.44 per share.

The results fell short of Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of 10 analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of $1.52 per share.

The provider of satellite TV services posted revenue of $8.14 billion in the period, also missing Street forecasts. Seven analysts surveyed by Zacks expected $8.16 billion.

Last spring, AT&T Inc. agreed to buy DirecTV for $48.5 billion in a deal it hopes to complete by the end of June.

DirecTV said it added 60,000 net subscribers in the U.S. market during the quarter, or 48,000 more than it added in last year's first quarter. Total enrollment in its largest market climbed about 1 percent to 20.4 million.

Shares of DirecTV fell 39 cents to $90 before markets opened Tuesday and after the company released results.

The stock has climbed slightly more than 4 percent since the beginning of the year, while the Standard & Poor's 500 index has increased almost 3 percent. The stock has climbed 13 percent in the last 12 months.

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Elements of this story were generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap ) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on DTV at http://www.zacks.com/ap/DTV

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Keywords: DirecTV, Earnings Report