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AT&T CFO comments on earnings as shares slide
| 03/14/2019
- AT&T shares trade near the bottom of the S&P 500
- Stock marked 1.11% lower
- $85.4bn merger with Time Warner still having effects
AT&T shares traded close to the bottom of the S&P 500 on Wednesday in the wake of news about a significant refurbishment of the streaming application, DirecTV Now, and cautious comments from Chief Financial Officer John Stephens.
At the Media, Internet and Telecom Conference, hosted by the Deutsche Bank at Palm Beach, Florida, Stephens reaffirmed the group’s earnings guidance and said that figures will fluctuate in the short term because of WarnerMedia’s inclusion. This is a result of the $85.4bn union with Time Warner which took place last year.
Stephens said that he expected WarnerMedia stock to be accretive throughout the year and pointed out that they had previously been in the fourth quarter at 10 cents a share. However, he added the caveat: “But I will tell you that historically WarnerMedia’s first and second quarter, because their NCAA and NBA contracts are followed by their two strongest quarters which are third and fourth.”
The CFO also referenced the sturdy fourth quarter for the company’s mobility sector, citing the release of the iPhone in the third quarter and how this had a positive impact on the company’s sales figures, stating that “We had a lot of sales in the phone in the third quarter.”
Stephens went on to say that as a launch quarter, the fourth quarter had a modest number of phone sales and that there had been a large service revenue growth for two consecutive quarters and that growth was within margins.
Late-morning Wednesday trading in New York saw AT&T shares marked 1.11% lower, while the broader S&P 500 gained 1.08%. The move means that the stock’s gains so far in 2019 now stand at roughly 2.5%.