Verizon Adds 406,000 Postpaid Phone Subscribers, Double Estimates

Verizon added 406,000 net postpaid phone subscribers in the third quarter — more than double the 195,000 analysts tracked by FactSet had projected, according to results the company reported Monday.

Shares of Verizon rose 2% in Monday's premarket trading. The subscriber haul marks the carrier's best third-quarter performance on that metric in years, and it towers over the year-ago figure: just 44,000 net postpaid phone additions in the third quarter of 2025.

The numbers show how much has changed under CEO Dan Schulman, who took over just over a year ago. Schulman has reworked plans and taken other steps to make Verizon's offerings more appealing and easier to understand.

"Winning loyal, high-value customers" is how Schulman put it in Monday's press release, adding that Verizon is doing so while improving profitability.

What did Verizon change in its guidance?

Verizon raised its full-year forecast across the board. It now expects 1.1 million to 1.2 million postpaid phone net additions for the year, up from prior guidance of landing in the "upper half" of a range between 750,000 and 1 million.

The upgrades don't stop there:

• Adjusted EPS growth of 7% to 7.5% for the full year, versus an earlier forecast of 6% to 7%.
• Free cash flow — the cash Verizon's business generates after subtracting infrastructure investments — expected to "approach" 12% growth for 2026, up from a prior call of 9% to 10%.

That's three raised targets in a single release. Wall Street had priced in none of the subscriber upside.

How big are the AI fiber deals?

Schulman's other big bet is renting out Verizon's fiber to artificial-intelligence companies that need it for data transmission. Monday's release gave investors their first full update on that effort since the last earnings call.

Verizon disclosed a "landmark" AI-infrastructure deal with Amazon.com's AWS, signed in the third quarter and worth more than $2 billion. That follows the $1 billion "dark fiber" deal with Google that Verizon announced on its previous earnings call.

Combined, the two agreements top $3 billion in committed AI-related revenue. That's a fast-growing second act for a company long judged almost entirely on phone subscribers.

What did the quarter's earnings look like?

Adjusted EPS came in at $1.31 for the third quarter, up 8.3% from a year earlier and ahead of the $1.27 FactSet consensus.

Mobility and broadband service revenue reached $23.5 billion, up 2.9% year over year. Verizon expects that growth to accelerate to a 4% rate in the fourth quarter.

One quarter doesn't make a turnaround, but a doubled subscriber beat, raised guidance and two multi-billion-dollar fiber contracts give Schulman a concrete story to defend. The fourth quarter will test whether the 4% revenue growth and subscriber momentum hold.