Verizon continues to see its Fios base continue to ramp up even as the housing market has cooled, a trend that continued into the second quarter of 2023.
During the quarter, the telco added 54,000 new Fios, up from 36,000 Fios Internet net additions in second-quarter 2022.
Verizon continues to expand the reach of Fios. The service provider announced expansions of the fiber broadband service in two markets earlier this year—Western Pennsylvania and Virginia.
In Pennsylvania, Verizon enabled 1,100 new households and businesses in Washington and Westmoreland counties. Over in Virginia, the service provider extended Fios to nearly 3,000 new households and businesses in Fios in Caroline and Greensville counties.
“Despite continued softness in household move activity, gross adds rose year over year and our retention levels continue to be strong,” said Tony Skiadas, EVP, and CFO of Verizon, during the second quarter 2023 earnings call.
He added that “our value marketing team has taken steps to address some of the softness we saw in the first half of this year.”
Broadband remains hot
Overall, consumer broadband continues to be a hot seller for Verizon.
During the quarter, Verizon added a total of 418,000 new subscribers, reflecting a strong demand for fixed wireless and Fios products. This result included 384,000 fixed wireless net additions, an increase from 256,000 fixed wireless net additions in the second-quarter 2022.
The telco noted this is the third consecutive quarter where it reported more than 400,000 broadband net additions. Verizon now has nearly 2.3 million subscribers on its fixed wireless service.
“In the past four quarters, we added more than 1.6 million subscribers, growing our broadband base by 21 percent during that time,” Skiadas said.
A key driver that supports Verizon’s broadband thesis is the fact that it owns its own fiber and wireless networks in the markets where it offers services.
“The good news for us is we have owner’s economics on everything—Fios, wireless and fixed wireless access,” said Hans Vestberg, CEO of Verizon. “This gives us the opportunity to meet customer demands if they want converged services or not.”
Advancing FWA
Besides Fios, Verizon continues to see benefits from its fixed wireless access service, adding 400,000 new FWA customers during the second quarter.
The service provider has been leveraging FWA as a broadband lever outside of its ILEC wireline footprint.
But the company is not stopping there.
Skiadas said Verizon “continues to assess opportunities to take targeted pricing actions to better monetize our products and services as we deliver great value for our customers.”
He added that telco recently announced an increase in FWA bundled pricing for new customers “which we expect will provide service revenue benefits in the second half of the year.”
