AT&T Q4 Profit Down

(RTTNews) - AT&T Inc. (T) Wednesday reported a fourth-quarter profit that dropped from a year ago, reflecting lower-than-expected.

Dallas, Texas-based telecom giant's fourth-quarter profit dropped to $2.44 billion or $0.39 per share from $4.01 billion or $0.65 per share last year.

Excluding special items, adjusted earnings were $0.66 per share. On average, 20 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected earnings of $0.66 per share for the quarter.

AT&T's revenues for the quarter dropped to $41.84 billion from $42.12 billion last year. Analyst had predicted revenues of $42.04 billion.

AT&T added a total of 250 thousand postpaid subscribers in the quarter. Postpaid churn rate for the quarter was 1.11 percent, up from 0.97 percent last quarter and 1.10 percent last year.

AT&T said DIRECTV NOW launch was strong with more than 200,000 paid net additions. U.S. DIRECTV satellite adds 235,000 subscribers with stable linear TV subscriber base.

AT&T had bought DirecTV for $48.5 billion to become the largest U.S. pay-TV provider.

Looking forward to full year 2017, AT&T expects revenue growth in the low-single digits range and adjusted earnings growth in the mid-single digit range.

T closed Wednesday's trading at $41.39, up $0.03 or 0.07% on the NYSE. The stock further rose $0.11 or 0.27% in the after-hours trade.