Verizon Posts $1.79 Billion Profit In Third QuarterVerizon Posts $1.79 Billion Profit In Third Quarter

NEW YORK (AP) -- Verizon Communications Inc. earned $1.79 billion in the third quarter, edging many forecasts, as more strong gains in wireless and long-distance subscribers helped offset continuing losses in the local telephone business.

The third-quarter income, amounting to 64 cents per share, was down sharply from the profit of $4.41 billion or $1.60 per share in the same period last year, when Verizon recorded one-time gains and tax benefits from sales of businesses.

Analysts surveyed by Thomson First Call, who lowered their forecasts after a profit warning by Verizon in September, had expected a per-share profit of about 63 cents for the just-ended quarter.

Verizon, the nation's biggest local and wireless phone company, said revenues totaled $17.16 billion in the latest quarter. That was up slightly from $17.11 billion in the year-ago period, a tally which included about $100 million sales from the businesses that were sold.

Driving the revenue improvement was an increase of 1.4 million customers for Verizon Wireless, bringing its market-leading total to 36 million.

The cell phone business, a joint venture with Britain's Vodafone PLC that is 60 percent owned by Verizon, accounted for more than a third of the company's revenues. The quarterly total of $5.94 billion marked an 18.2 percent increase from the wireless unit's revenues of $5.03 billion a year earlier.

Revenues from long-distance, where the customer base grew 1.3 million to a total of 15.9 million subscribers, increased 17.2 percent to $1.00 billion compared with third quarter of 2002.

However, revenues from local phone service declined 6.1 percent to $4.83 billion, and overall revenues from wireline services fell 4.1 percent to $9.85 billion compared with third quarter 2002.

The company also posted a gain of 185,000 customers for high-speed DSL Internet service for a total of 2.1 million broadband lines. But total revenues for Internet and data services slipped 1.6 percent to $1.78 billion. The company said increased demand for broadband services was offset by a lessened demand for lower-speed services.

The company said that about 44 percent of its residential customers now purchase local phone services in combination with either long-distance, DSL, or both.

``The composition of our overall revenues continues to shift to newer, non-traditional sources, fueled by high levels of customer and revenue growth in wireless, long-distance and broadband,'' Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg said.

Net debt was reduced to $44.71 billion at the end of the third quarter 2003, down from $51.85 billion at year-end 2002.

For the first nine months of 2003, Verizon has posted a net profit of $4.54 billion or $1.63 per share. In the same period last year, earnings totaled $1.79 billion, or 65 cents per share. Nine-month revenues totaled $50.47 billion, up 0.6 percent from $50.15 billion a year earlier.