AT&T Inc. (T)

“We are on pace to repurchase nearly $1 billion of stock in July.”

“In the near term, this will likely put some pressure on Fiber ARPU, but we feel really good about our ability to manage our back book pricing as we grow our base of fiber customers that also subscribe to our wireless services.”

“We expect our focus on convergence to drive continued strong net additions in advanced home internet and postpaid phone subscribers during the third quarter and continued growth in converged customers.”

“As a result, we expect free cash flow will be relatively stable year-over-year in the third quarter, with strong year-over-year growth in the fourth quarter.”

“We are well-positioned to fund the transaction, which we expect to close by the end of July.”

“Overall, we reiterated our guidance for Advanced Connectivity service revenue to be 5%+.”

“By the time we get into next year we will have solved for that other 2% and we will be in the market doing what customers want, which is providing them the assurance that they can buy from one provider and always be on the internet.”

“We have another step up to take here as we move through the year, and that's part of our plan when we talk to you about accelerating performance, that we're going to make that happen.”

“We remain on pace to achieve $4 billion in consolidated annual cost savings by the end of 2028.”

“Nearly two years ago, we told you we would establish a path to effect an orderly turndown of legacy copper services by the end of the decade. In my view, we've now reached the tipping point, and that goal is firmly in sight.”

“This is supporting our improved capital returns and provides us with the flexibility to further increase our pace of planned share repurchases this year by up to 25% to approximately $10 billion to capture what we see as a disparity between our operating fundamentals and the valuation of our stock.”

“I think we're going to see the balance of the year look very much the same to what you saw right now.”

“That's a little bit longer cycle time work. It's something that we need to take well into next year to ramp up to the rate and pace of build that we want.”

“We continue to expect that our net leverage ratio will increase following the close of our transaction with EchoStar to the 3.2 times range and then return to a level consistent with our target in the two and a half times range within approximately three years following the close of the EchoStar transaction.”

“Together, our planned share repurchases and expected dividend payments will total approximately $18 billion this year, which is essentially 100% of our outlook for free cash flow.”

“As John previously shared, we now expect to buy back approximately $10 billion of our shares in 2026.”

“Our advanced connectivity segment enters the second half of the year with strong momentum, and we continue to expect full-year service revenue growth of 5% plus and EBITDA growth of 6% plus.”

“We have turned a corner and expect AT&T Business to remain a driver of growth in Advanced Connectivity service revenues going forward.”

“We also expect higher cash flow from operations during the fourth quarter of this year compared to last year, when our results were impacted by discrete items, including legal settlements and a large contribution to our pension.”

“Compared to the second half of last year, when we were ramping up our fiber deployment, we expect our capital investment to be more ratable during the second half of this year.”

“For the full year, we continue to expect $18 billion+ of free cash flow and $23 billion-$24 billion of capital investment.”

“We continue to expect full-year adjusted EPS to be in the range of $2.25-$2.35.”

“For the full year, we continue to expect consolidated service revenues to grow in the low single-digit range and consolidated adjusted EBITDA to grow in the 3%-4% range.”

“By the end of the year, we expect a couple hundred wire centers to have zero customers.”

“We have approval to discontinue legacy services in over 30% of our wire centers, which will be effective by late 2026.”

“As I've said in the past, where we have fiber, we win, with fiber and wireless, I expect that as we expand our funnel of new fiber locations, we'll drive strong growth in our converged customer base and financial results.”

“This will be our largest year ever for fiber expansion, with plans to reach 8 million new locations, including over 4 million locations acquired from Lumen.”

“we continue to expect Advanced Connectivity business service revenues will grow at a low single-digit CAGR through 2028.”

“As we get through the balance of the year, I expect pretty much the same seasonal patterns that we've seen in free cash flow, and we remain confident.”

“I believe you're naturally going to see that churn dynamic improve.”

“Today, we reach over 37 million customer locations with fiber, and we're on track to reach 60 million plus locations by the end of the decade.”

“I expect every month that passes the performance of the [indiscernible] will continue to get better.”

“Going into Q2 and improving for the rest of the year. We expect both service revenues and EBITDA to accelerate gradually.”

“And those cost improvements in that structure is all forecasted in our going-forward guidance that we've given you.”

“I would expect it shortly as we begin to get to a point where we start to deploy some new spectrum as we close the EchoStar transaction, you'll see the first instantiation of that as we move forward”

“I think you're going to see it ultimately come back in the line.”

“We continue to expect to repurchase approximately of stock this year and to maintain a consistent pace of buybacks through 2028 as we execute against our plans to return $45 billion plus to shareholders over this time period.”

“We also continue to expect that we will close the transaction with an equity investor for the acquired Lumen fiber assets during the second half of the year.”

“We continue to expect that our net leverage ratio will increase to approximately 3.2x following our transaction with EchoStar, then declined to approximately 3x by the end of 2026, and return to a level consistent with our target in the 2.5x range within approximately 3 years following the transaction.”

“And we expect this dynamic will persist for the next several quarters.”

“which is consistent with our outlook for 20% plus decline in 2026.”

“with EBITDA growth of 6% plus.”

“we continue to expect Advanced Connectivity service revenues to grow 5% plus this year with EBITDA growth of 6% plus.”

“Our outlook continues to anticipate immaterial EBITDA contribution this year from the operating regions acquired from Lumen.”

“Based on our improved sales execution and expanding fiber reach, we expect total business service revenues within Advanced Connectivity segment to remain stable in the near term and continue to grow at a low single-digit CAGR through 2028.”

“As we ramp our fiber reach, we expect to see improved trends in our fiber net adds over the course of the year while still considering typical seasonality.”

“We continue to expect that our fiber reach will grow by about 8 million locations in 2026, including over [indiscernible] new locations we acquired from [ Lumen ].”

“This is driven by our outlook for customer gains from our new unlimited and converted subscription plans, and our expanding opportunity to sell wireless and home Internet services together.”

“We expect second quarter year-over-year wireless service revenue growth to improve from growth reported in the first quarter and maintain our full year outlook for growth in the 2% to 3% range.”

“we continue to expect full year adjusted EPS to be in the $2.25 to $2.35 range.”

“we continue to expect $18 billion plus of free cash flows for the full year.”

“We continue to expect consolidated adjusted EBITDA growth in the 3% to 4% range for the full year.”

“We continue to expect we will grow consolidated service revenues in the low single-digit range for the full year, driven by growth in wireless service, fiber and fixed wireless revenues, partially offset by declines in transitional and legacy revenues.”

“We're executing the steps to scale engineering, construction and service delivery in the acquired geographies, expected as we move into the back half of the year, will achieve steady improvement in fiber and wireless customer growth in these areas.”

“We expect [ that as ] a greater portion of our customers purchase their wireless and Internet connectivity from AT&T will demonstrate improved trends in churn and additional improvement in account growth.”

“you should expect we're going to be on probably a solid two quarter ramp here of getting ourselves up the learning curve and getting more effective”

“We continue to expect that we will close our acquisition of fiber assets from Lumen during the first quarter, which will add approximately $900 million of annualized fiber revenues.”

“Therefore, I think on balance, we are confident in our ability to manage the overall ARPU dynamic, despite having to incur the additional promotional costs.”

“And I have high degree of confidence we're gonna be able to continue to execute on that”

“we've got plans in place that we're going to drive that to 50%, feel very comfortable with that.”

“In fact, we expect the next three years to say $4 billion more than $4 billion in cost”

“We expect those to moderate as you look out the next two, three years.”

“but you should expect that to continue to ramp as the year goes by.”

“That too, in terms of fixed wireless, we expect to sell more this year than we did last year.”

“And it's going to be $5,000,000 a year thereafter.”

“Under this capital return plan, we expect to maintain our current common stock dividend with a consistent pace of share repurchases through 2028, including approximately $8 billion of buybacks in 2026.”

“As we outlined in our earnings release, we expect to return $45 billion plus to shareholders during 2026 to 2028.”

“We continue to expect that our net leverage will return to a level consistent with our target in the 2.5 times range within approximately three years following the closing of these acquisitions.”

“Immediately following the closing of these transactions, we expect our net debt to adjusted EBITDA to increase to approximately 3.2 times and then to decline to approximately three times by year-end as we grow adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow.”

“We expect free cash flows to grow by $1 billion plus in 2027 and approximately $2 billion in 2028, driven primarily by growth in adjusted EBITDA.”

“For 2026, we expect free cash flows of $18 billion plus, reflecting primarily growth in adjusted EBITDA, lower pension contributions, and lower legal settlements, partially offset by higher capital investments and cash interest.”

“We also expect depreciation and amortization expense of about $20 billion annually through 2028 as incremental depreciation from our growth investments is offset by the roll-off of depreciated assets that have reached the end of their useful lives.”

“For 2026, our outlook for adjusted EPS includes approximately $0.05 of dilution from stand-up costs and higher interest expense related to our transactions with Lumen and EchoStar and an effective tax rate in the 22% range.”

“We expect adjusted EPS to be in the $2.25 to $2.35 range in 2026, with a double-digit three-year CAGR through 2028.”

“improving to 5% or better in 2028.”

“Putting this all together, we expect to achieve growth in consolidated adjusted EBITDA in the 3% to 4% range in 2026, improving to 5% or better in 2028.”

“Our long-term outlook does not anticipate a material contribution to EBITDA growth from our pending acquisitions until 2028, which is also when we expect these investments to become accretive to adjusted EPS.”

“We achieved over $1 billion of cost savings in 2025 and expect to achieve an additional $4 billion in annual cost savings by 2028.”

“Altogether, we expect that total business service revenues within the advanced connectivity segment will grow at a low single-digit CAGR through 2028.”

“Our outlook anticipates that service revenues from business customers across wireless, fiber, and fixed wireless will accelerate over the next several years and more than offset expected continued declines in transitional and other services.”

“So we expect that our reported growth in advanced home Internet revenues in 2026 will exceed 30%.”

“We expect our advanced home Internet service revenues to grow organically by 20% plus annually through 2028, which is consistent with the annual growth we have achieved in these revenues over the past two years.”

“This was approximately a 90 basis points headwind to our reported postpaid phone ARPU growth in 2025, and our outlook anticipates a similar headwind this year.”

“Our outlook assumes a relatively stable trend in postpaid phone ARPU as our consistent disciplined approach to pricing is balanced by gains in underpenetrated categories such as value-focused customers as well as growth in converged customers who enjoy a service discount that is typically more than offset over time through lower churn and the purchase of additional services.”

“We expect total wireless service revenue growth in the 2% to 3% range annually over the next three years.”

“Looking ahead, we expect annual cash taxes of approximately $1 billion to $1.5 billion through 2028.”

“As a result, we remain on track to contribute $1.5 billion of cash tax savings from provisions in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act to our employee pension plan by 2026.”

“and expect to contribute an additional $350 million this year.”

“We also expect to return $45 billion plus to our shareholders over the next three years through our attractive dividend and consistent pace of share repurchases.”

“Over the next three years, we expect to drive accelerated growth in adjusted EBITDA, double-digit adjusted EPS growth, and strong free cash flow.”

“As we complete these investments, we expect our capital intensity to decline from a high teens percent of revenue to the mid-teens, driving higher durable long-term cash flow.”

“This outlook anticipates that our major capital projects will be substantially completed by 2030 or sooner.”

“we plan to accelerate efficiency gains across the company by leveraging AI, moving more customer transactions to digital, and achieving greater operating leverage as we grow our customer base.”

“We're also making progress towards our goal of discontinuing legacy services in the large majority of our footprint by 2029.”

“Over the past two years, in an inflationary environment, our average deployment cost per fiber passing has increased by approximately 2% annually. We expect a similar trend over the next three years.”

“Beyond 2026, we plan to expand our fiber reach by approximately 5,000,000 locations annually through the end of this decade.”

“Including GigaPower and the fiber assets that we're acquiring from Lumen, we expect to reach over 40,000,000 customer locations with our fiber services by the end of this year, up from 32,000,000 at the end of 2025.”

“Within our traditional operating region, we continue to expect that our annual pace of fiber construction will ramp from 3,000,000 new locations in 2025 to a run rate of 4,000,000 by the end of this year.”

“And I'm really confident that we haven't quite hit our full stride on that yet. But we can do even better on that front as we move forward in the coming quarters.”

“remain confident in our ability to deliver on our full-year outlook for mobility service revenue growth of 3% or better and mobility EBITDA growth of approximately 3%.”

“we are on track to achieve this year's consolidated financial guidance.”

“in the fourth quarter, as an example, we expect to have a pricing action that becomes effective that will contribute to service revenue growth.”

“We expect both of these transactions to boost our organic growth in revenues and profitability, and you should expect that this will be reflected in our updated outlook.”

“we expect to provide an update to our long-term financial outlook early next year.”

“we expect our fourth-quarter depreciation and amortization expense of about $5 billion is more aligned with the quarterly run rate we expect heading into next year.”

“In the fourth quarter, we expect to see sequentially lower depreciation and amortization expense as certain legacy assets become fully depreciated.”

“We also reiterate our full-year outlook for adjusted EPS of $1.97 to $2.07 and expect that we will come in closer to the high end of this range.”

“We also continue to expect full-year capital investment in the $22 billion to $22.5 billion range, which implies fourth-quarter capital investments of roughly $7 billion to $7.5 billion.”

“we continue to expect full-year free cash flow in the low to mid $16 billion range, including about $4 billion in the fourth quarter.”

“we're executing well and are reiterating our full-year financial guidance. At a consolidated level, this includes service revenue growth in the low single-digit range and adjusted EBITDA growth of 3% or better.”

“We expect to receive an additional $3.8 billion of cash, with the large majority expected over the course of the fourth quarter and the early part of next year.”

“keeping us on pace to achieve our full-year target of $4 billion in buybacks.”

“we continue to expect Business Wireline EBITDA pressures to moderate versus last year, with a full-year decline in the low double-digit range.”

“we expect continued acceleration in our fiber and wireless connectivity revenues in the fourth quarter.”

“we continue to expect to achieve full-year growth in consumer fiber broadband revenue in the mid to high teens and Consumer Wireline EBITDA growth in the low to mid-teens range.”

“This year, we expect our fiber net adds to exhibit typical seasonality in the fourth quarter, when we usually see lower levels of new connections as we get deeper into the holiday season.”

“We expect these dynamics to continue in the fourth quarter, which typically sees seasonally lower ARPU with some offsetting benefits related to a pricing action that becomes effective in December.”

“we continue to plan for postpaid phone churn and upgrades to follow seasonal patterns in the fourth quarter when we typically see more switching and upgrade activity due to new device launches and the holiday season.”

“This includes an additional $400 million of contributions planned in the fourth quarter, with the remaining $700 million of contributions next year.”

“Based on our current rate and pace, we expect these mid-band licenses will be deployed in cell sites covering nearly two-thirds of the U.S. population by mid-November.”

“I would expect with our partner the way we meet our obligations around rate of penetration and how we bring customers on, we are going to continue to be the anchor provider on that network.”

“I feel very, very confident in the path we set for this business. And I feel very confident that the actions we've taken over the course of the last several years have put us in a position to be the leader in this industry, to lead on retail service revenues by the time we get to 2030.”

“With regards to margins, we continue to expect overall company margin expansion consistent with what you saw this quarter.”

“As we complete our key investments, acquisitions, and transformation initiatives, we expect to increase our fiber and convergence penetration rates and see a majority of incremental revenue growth originate from converged customer relationships.”

“we expect to contribute $1.5 billion to our pension plan by 2026 using a portion of the cash tax savings from provisions within the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.”

“This should position us to further expand the availability of Internet Air in our sales channels in 2026.”

“we expect to reach more than 60 million customer locations by 2030.”

“And as more and more wirelines come offline, we're going to have the ability to continue to drive cost out.”

“We are also increasing our outlook for Consumer Wireline EBITDA growth to the low- to mid-teens from our initial outlook for growth in the high-single to low-double-digit range.”

“we are increasing our full year guidance for consumer fiber broadband revenues to growth in the mid- to high-teens from our previous outlook for growth in the mid-teens.”

“As a result of the tailwinds in our Mobility business, we are increasing our full year guidance for Mobility service revenue growth to 3% or better from our previous outlook for growth in the high end of the 2% to 3% range.”

“we're positioned to deliver on our full year consolidated financial guidance for 2025”

“I don't expect seasonality to be different this year. I mean we're not planning on it being different this year. So I would expect, because of that seasonality that you referenced, you'll probably see historically our net add numbers on fiber adjust to that seasonality and move through it.”

“Excluding growth-related spend, we expect the operating leverage to really be good in that business, and we would expect margins to continue to perform well.”

“As you look to the second half, I do believe there was some pull forward of demand. We haven't seen what the new device offer will bring. But for planning purposes, we are assuming that we're going to continue to have a competitive environment.”

“This process is already underway and is expected to result in about $0.5 billion of additional capital investment in 2025 and about $3 billion of additional capital investment across 2026 and 2027 combined compared to the guidance we provided at our Analyst and Investor Day.”

“We expect to reinvest some of these savings in the third quarter to drive future growth in fiber and advanced connectivity revenues. While this will put some incremental sequential pressure on third quarter EBITDA, we now expect full year Business Wireline EBITDA to decline in the low double-digit range versus our initial outlook for a mid-teens decline.”

“Based on the expanded availability and strong demand, we expect a higher level of Internet Air net adds in the second half of the year as compared to the first half.”

“As a reminder, the second quarter is typically our lowest quarter for subscriber growth, and we expect higher fiber net adds in the third quarter.”

“Accordingly, we continue to expect consolidated adjusted EBITDA growth of 3% or better.”

“In the aggregate, all other cash operating expenses across Mobility and Wireline business units declined year-over-year. This was a result of our cost initiatives, and we expect this trend to continue during the second half of the year.”

“We expect this will result in higher growth-related spending in the near term, and we now expect that Mobility EBITDA growth will be approximately 3% this year versus our initial outlook for growth in the high end of the 3% to 4% range.”

“Based on this operating environment, we're planning for postpaid phone churn to follow seasonal patterns in the back half of the year, which typically sees more switching during new device launches and the holiday period.”

“we ramp into it through 2026, and we ultimately reach about a 4 million home per year build rate by the time we exit 2026.”

“For 2026 and 2027, we expect approximately $1 billion of upside to the annual free cash flow guidance we provided at our Analyst and Investor Day.”

“This contribution would elevate the plan's funded status to approximately 95% based on the last reported valuation.”

“We also intend to contribute $1.5 billion of these savings into our employee pension plan by the end of 2026 with more than half of that coming in 2025.”

“We expect to realize between $6.5 billion and $8 billion in cash tax savings from 2025 through 2027 as a result of the tax provisions included in the legislation.”

“We expect the result to be faster growth, higher operating leverage and lower capital intensity as we complete the large majority of these network investments and transformation initiatives over the remainder of this decade.”

“This is a key step towards our target of discontinuing service across the large majority of our copper footprint by the end of 2029.”

“we intend to contribute $1.5 billion to our pension plan by the end of next year.”

“As a result of our stepped-up investment, we now expect that by the end of 2030, we'll reach approximately 50 million customer locations and reach more than 60 million fiber locations when including the Lumen Mass Markets fiber assets we've agreed to acquire, our Gigapower joint venture and agreements with other commercial open access providers.”

“This includes plans to invest a portion of these savings into our network, primarily by accelerating our fiber deployment to a pace of 4 million new locations per year, a run rate we expect to achieve by the end of 2026.”

“In terms of Mobility growth in the first half, we're really happy with it. As I mentioned in my commentary, we don't -- when you look at the back half of the year, we're assuming that you're going to continue to have an active environment. We're hopeful that, that's not the case.”

“Our goal is to fully fund the employee pension plan by the early part of next decade.”

“There are some adjustments we are going to we have made on auto bill pay discount, which should also help the balance of the year.”

“I have been saying all along you should expect that since fiber is the best fixed broadband product in the market over time, you are going to continue to see margins improve on it.”

“In terms of Q2, I would expect elevated levels of upgrades. I mean, you see Q1 as a benchmark. I think, you know, thinking about it in the context of at least around the same levels.”

“I do not see the business model dramatically changing to, you know, accommodate subsidy levels that are much different from what's out there today.”

“These remain strategic priorities, and we expect these initiatives to remain on pace with the timelines we outlined at our Analyst and Investor Day in December.”

“So we expect to see a normalization in the trajectory of business wireline EBITDA during the remainder of the year.”

“On the top line, we benefited from pricing actions on legacy services, which helped moderate revenue declines although we expect this benefit to diminish over the next few quarters.”

“Based on the current market dynamic and the return to a more normalized cadence of promotional roll-offs, we expect postpaid phone churn to remain at a similar level in 2Q with typical seasonality in the back half of the year as we approach the holidays.”

“And we continue to expect full-year free cash flow of $16 billion plus.”

“If upgrade rates remain elevated, this could represent a pull forward from the second half of the year.”

“I'm not expecting to see that change anytime in the near future.”

“What I would expect on where we are in the mobile side is should our gross add performance get a little bit better relative to what we want to do on the share side in certain segments, yes. But do I expect that we're going to be looking at outsized numbers, given the overall pool of growth is getting smaller? No.”

“So you should expect that, that's not going to carry into the first quarter.”

“We also expect that our free cash flow will continue to have a more ratable profile over the course of the year.”

“Our planned share repurchases starting later this year are not expected to materially benefit our adjusted EPS in 2025.”

“On this basis, our guidance anticipates growth in both of these metrics this year, driven primarily by our outlook for growth in consolidated adjusted EBITDA of 3% or better.”

“Given these efforts, we feel good about our combined vendor and direct supplier financing levels and do not expect to materially reduce them on a year-over-year basis in 2025.”

“Customers reaching the end of their device promotions return to a more normalized level on a seasonal basis in the fourth quarter, and we expect this to continue during 2025.”

“We also expect to lead the industry in postpaid phone churn for the 14th time in the last 16 quarters and to lead the industry on an annual basis for the fourth straight year.”

“I don't expect we’d ever get back to $24 billion at this juncture, given how far along we are in our reinvestment strategies.”

“This is driven by our outlook for annual adjusted EBITDA growth of 3% or better as well as accumulating benefits of reducing our share count through planned share repurchases.”

“Looking a little further ahead, we continue to expect adjusted EPS to grow at a double-digit CAGR from 2027 as outlined at our Analyst and Investor Day.”

“Since signing this agreement, we have received $1.7 billion in pretax cash distributions from DIRECTV and expect to receive an additional $5.9 billion in after tax cash payments related to this transaction through 2029.”

“As we discussed at our Analyst and Investor Day, over the long-term, we expect to grow our fiber penetration and our penetration of converged services within our fiber footprint.”

“We also expect to realize cost savings as we evolve our technology stacks and work to exit our legacy copper network operations across the large majority of our wireline footprint by the end of 2029.”

“So if we're building $3 million right now, and we wanted to move to $4 million, that's probably a 12 month best case, 18 month worst case scenario to ramp to that level.”

“As John noted, we're on pace to deliver on all of our full year 2024 consolidated financial guidance.”

“I wouldn't expect it to dramatically change as you move into next year.”

“And I don't think you're going to see what I would call a demonstrative shift in the quarters moving forward.”

“You should expect as we continue to scale some of our distribution in the mid-business market that you'll see those numbers grow as a result of that”

“I don't expect things to be dramatically different as we move through the fourth quarter.”

“Cash taxes were about $600 million in the third quarter, and we expect to pay about $1.6 billion in cash taxes in the fourth quarter.”

“Based on the terms of our agreement to divest our 70% stake in DIRECTV, we expect $1.1 billion of pre-tax cash payments in 4Q.”

“However, we expect to continue reducing our aggregate net balance of direct supply and vendor financing on a year-over-year basis for the remainder of the year, which should lower our interest expense and continue to improve the quality and ratability of our cash flows over time.”

“In the fourth quarter, we expect sequential increase in direct supplier financing balances due to typical seasonality.”

“While near-term declines in legacy voice revenues are likely to weigh on Business Wireline EBITDA trends for the remainder of the year, our 5G and wireless products continue to present attractive growth opportunities in business solutions.”

“We now expect Business Wireline EBITDA declines in the high-teens range for the full year versus our prior outlook for a mid-teen decline.”

“Through the third quarter, Consumer Wireline EBITDA grew 10%, and we continue to expect growth in the mid to high-single digit range for the full year, including impacts from the recent work stoppage and storms.”

“For the full year, we continue to expect broadband revenue growth of 7% plus.”

“Our Mobility outlook also continues to anticipate higher fourth quarter promotional activity levels consistent with seasonal trends.”

“The strong performance puts us on pace to achieve our target of mobility EBITDA growth in the higher end of the mid-single digit range for the full year.”

“For the year, we continue to expect Mobility service revenue growth in the 3% range.”

“Our free cash flow is tracking to the midpoint of our guidance range of $17 billion to $18 billion.”

“These additional vendor financing payments put us on page for a full year capital investment at the high end of our guidance range of $21 billion to $22 billion.”

“We also expect to sustain strong cash conversion in the fourth quarter and anticipate using our improved liquidity to continue reducing our short-term financing, including further paydown of vendor financing in the fourth quarter.”

“We expect higher capital investment in the fourth quarter as we ramp our wireless network modernization.”

“For the full year, our expectations remain for adjusted EPS in the range of $2.15 to $2.25.”

“We expect to achieve this growth even with about $115 million of estimated financial impact related to the effects of Hurricane Helene and Milton and the work stoppage.”

“Year-to-date, adjusted EBITDA grew 3.4%, and we continue to expect adjusted EBITDA growth in the 3% range for the full year.”

“We're adding customers, increasing profitability and expect to deliver the best postpaid phone churn in the industry for the 13th time in 15 quarters.”

“This puts us in a solid position heading into the fourth quarter where we expect seasonally higher phone purchasing activity, upgrades and promotional cycles.”

“what you should see is over time, profit margins that are much closer to some of our scale broadband competitors.”

“We certainly have been very diligent as we have been in the last couple of years to look for pockets in our base of where we think there is a value mismatch, and we can possibly realign some pricing into the market, that's helped us this year. It helped us last year, I would expect it might help us a little bit next year.”

“But we are very comfortable sitting here today that we are going to be able to pay that and still deliver on our full-year commitments.”

“We feel confident in our financial guidance going forward.”

“To close, I'm very pleased with our team's performance in the first half of the year and we're on pace to deliver on all of our full-year financial guidance.”

“Based on our strong subscriber and EBITDA growth through the first half of the year, we believe our Mobility business is well-positioned to capitalize on a more dynamic wireless market in the back half while achieving our financial targets.”

“I expect this performance to continue, putting us on track to deliver on our full-year financial guidance.”

“So you'll continue to see us scale further in the business market. We're still getting the distribution tuned and honed in that space, and I would expect you see improvement in our numbers in the business segment as we move forward in the coming quarters.”

“I would expect that as we go through our normal cycle toward the end of the year here as we start to give guidance for next year, you'll get what you need in terms of moving forward.”

“I expect that there'll be a little bit of shrink in some of those transitional promotions.”

“Overall, we're on pace to deliver on our full-year free cash flow guidance in the $17 billion to $18 billion range.”

“Looking into the second half of the year, we expect cash taxes to be a billion dollars higher compared to the second half of last year.”

“We continue to expect DIRECTV cash distributions to decline at a similar rate to 2023, or by about 20% annually.”

“We expect to continue reducing our aggregate net balance of direct supplier and vendor financing on a year-over-year basis, which should lower our interest expense and continue to improve cash flow ratability over time.”

“While near-term declines in legacy voice revenues are likely to weigh on Business Wireline EBITDA trends for the remainder of the year, our 5G and fiber expansion continue to present attractive growth opportunities in business solutions.”

“So for the full year, we still expect Business Wireline EBITDA decline in the mid-teens range.”

“So the year-on-year trend in Business Wireline EBITDA is likely to see some pressure in 3Q before improving in 4Q as comparisons ease.”

“We still expect Consumer Wireline EBITDA to grow in the mid-to-high single-digit range this year.”

“For the full year, we continue to expect broadband revenue growth of 7% plus.”

“We expect these to remain the primary drivers of quarterly trends in AT&T Fiber net-adds in the back half of the year.”

“This is the fourth consecutive quarter of positive broadband net gains and we expect this trend to continue.”

“We also expect to see greater benefits from our announced pricing actions in 4Q versus 3Q.”

“In particular, we anticipate higher marketing spend in the third quarter compared to last year.”

“As John noted during his remarks, our Mobility outlook anticipates higher activity levels in the back half, consistent with seasonal trends.”

“During the first half of 2024, Mobility EBITDA grew 6.1%, and we continue to expect Mobility EBITDA growth in the higher end of the mid-single-digit range for the full year.”

“For the year, we continue to expect modest postpaid phone ARPU growth and Mobility service revenue growth in the 3% range.”

“We remain on track for capital investments in the $21 billion to $22 billion range for the year with higher spending in the back half of the year as we ramp our wireless network modernization.”

“For the full-year, our expectations remain for adjusted EPS in the range of $2.15 to $2.25.”

“In the first half, adjusted EBITDA grew 3.4%, and we continue to expect adjusted EBITDA growth in the 3% range for the full year.”

“We expect the continued expansion of AT&T Fiber, both in-footprint and outside of it will enable us to drive significant growth with converged customers.”

“The efficient first-half growth we achieved in our Mobility business positions us well for the back half of the year when we expect higher activity levels driven by the availability of new devices and features, seasonal purchasing activity, and promotional cycles.”

“we're making steady progress on achieving our target in the 2.5 times range in the first half of 2025.”

“with fiber, we remain on track to pass 30 million plus consumer and business locations by the end of 2025.”

“We remain on track for full year capital investments in the $21 billion to $22 billion range versus approximately $24 billion in 2023.”

“we remain on track to deliver on all the consolidated financial guidance we shared in January.”

“It's going to be a little bit painful for a couple of quarters, as we move through this transition.”

“I do expect, as we move through this year, that we will make progress in that regard.”

“I feel good about the fact that we've been able to drive our ARPUs up, keep our margins in check, if not improve them, and continue to do some things that take some price in certain places, where we think we can keep the value equation in check. And I expect we're going to continue to do that, as we move through this year.”

“So one would expect that maybe there's an opportunity to change that value equation and continue to take a little price in places and we're going to continue to do that.”

“I don't see anything going on right now that suggests we're out of pattern to what our expectations were, as we set up plan for 2024.”

“Looking forward, we still anticipate generating approximately 40% of our total 2024 free cash flow in the first half of the year and continue to expect full year free cash flow of $17 billion to $18 billion range.”

“For the year, and thereafter, we continue to expect DIRECTV cash distributions to decline at a similar rate to 2023 or by about 20% annually.”

“As I mentioned last quarter, we expect to address near-term maturities with cash on hand, and this quarter, we repaid $4.7 billion of long-term debt maturities.”

“In other words, we expect our total capital investment and capital intensity to decline this year even as we boost investments in our network.”

“We're also pleased with early demand for AT&T Internet Air for business, which we expect to benefit results in the second half of the year.”

“This should benefit results in the second half of the year when we also have more favorable year-over-year comparison.”

“We now expect consumer wireline EBITDA to grow in the mid to high-single-digit range this year, driven by continued strong fiber revenue growth and disciplined cost management, partially offset by continued legacy copper declines.”

“For the full year, we continue to expect broadband revenue growth of 7% plus.”

“For the year, we continue to expect modest postpaid phone ARPU growth.”

“We now expect our mobility EBITDA to grow in the higher end of the mid-single-digit range this year, driven by better-than-expected performance with business wireless customers and continued disciplined cost management.”

“We continue to expect wireless service revenue growth in the 3% range for the full year.”

“As a reminder, the first quarter is typically the high watermark for device payments and we expect payments to get progressively lower throughout the year.”

“The paydown of this facility should allow us to continue to drive more ratable quarterly free cash flow.”

“For the full year, our expectations remain for adjusted EPS of $2.15 to $2.25.”

“For the full year, we still expect adjusted EBITDA growth in the 3% range.”

“We also expect that this will be the 11th time in the last 13 quarters, where we deliver the industry's lowest postpaid phone churn.”

“For a perspective, in 2023, mobility and consumer wireline together represented more than 80% of revenue and about 85% of EBITDA in our communications segment. This means, we're growing the large majority of our business and driving improved operating leverage across it. We expect this to continue.”

“And once again, we expect to report the lowest postpaid phone churn among the major service providers this quarter.”

“I'm not sure that I'm of the mindset that there's going to be something that occurs in the device portfolio that dramatically changes things in the latter part of the year.”

“As we've stated before the better-than-expected returns, we're seeing on our fiber investment potentially expands the opportunity to go beyond our initial target by roughly 10 million to 15 million additional locations.”

“One other point, just to add as well, as the legacy revenues continue to decline, we have an opportunity to continue to really hit costs in that sector fairly hard. And so I'm confident that that will also be a factor in moderating the losses over time.”

“Very comfortable we're going to meet our commitment to you of 30 million passings”

“I'm comfortable that what we can deliver in our plan next year isn't going to hang on what the government chooses to do with ACP.”

“And I don't think you should expect to see that there is going to be any less sustainability of our performance than what you've seen over the previous couple of years in the strategies and the tactics we use.”

“We remain encouraged by the overall health of the wireless industry and are confident that our mobility business will deliver again as we expect to continue to grow in customers, service revenues, and EBITDA to healthy clip in 2024.”

“Look, the investments we've been making obviously are working, and as I look forward, we've said it, we expect to operate at mid-teens capital intensity long term, and we're committed to that.”

“So you've heard me talk about we should be at mid-teens as a percent of revenue in a steady state as we kind of get through the front end of this investment cycle.”

“We think we're in a pretty good position where our visibility for '24 is better than where we have been, and don't expect that we're going to have quite the pressure we saw from that side of things that is a bit different from a forecasting and fundamentals perspective.”

“So not only are we growing EBITDA, we're going to now start growing the customer base and this will be one of the tools we use to have that ratable, sustainable growth that I think we've been seeking.”

“It's something that we will lean into this year. You will see it reflected in our performance as we move throughout the year.”

“And I expect we'll have to do that in 2024 to deliver our plan and do what we need to do, inflation driven or not.”

“I think we've shared with you that we expect probably some modest ARPU accretion in our guidance as we move through next year in the wireless space.”

“We saw that happen in '23. I think we're at a more normalized level right now. We're kind of expecting that is going to continue into next year. It'll be probably right around the same place. We're not going to see it dramatically different.”

“We expect that to be closer to 60% this year.”

“However, in the year, we do expect higher spend on capital projects.”

“Looking forward, we expect DIRECTV cash distributions to decline at a similar rate in 2024 and thereafter.”

“We also expect cash taxes to be up about $1.5 billion based on current tax law.”

“Lastly, we expect an effective tax rate in 2024 consistent with the 2023 rate.”

“and $0.03 impact from lower adjusted equity income from DIRECTV, which we expect to be about $2.6 billion versus $2.9 billion in 2023.”

“These include $0.05 impact from lower spectrum related interest capitalization as we near completion of our initial C-band spectrum deployment in 2024. We don't expect capitalized interest to be a significant headwind beyond 2024”

“Next year, we expect a more moderate decline in prior service credit amortization, continuing to decrease in the subsequent years as prior year plan changes become fully amortized.”

“In 2024, we expect prior service credit amortization to be $2 billion or a decline of about $600 million.”

“Finally, similar to last year, we expect to benefit from ongoing corporate cost reductions again this year.”

“Overall, we expect to continue to grow consolidated revenues next year.”

“AI-driven efficiencies are also another significant leg of our cost savings efforts as we make progress on achieving our announced incremental $2 billion plus run rate savings target by mid-2026.”

“We also expect 2024 to be the prove-it year for our Gigapower initiative, and we plan to explore other unique opportunities to extend the AT&T brand on a converged basis beyond our traditional footprint.”

“Going forward, we expect margin expansion to continue.”

“Therefore, as we scale our fiber footprint, we expect to continue to drive margin expansion.”

“Importantly, we have continued to lower our pension obligation, including our transfer of certain pension assets and liabilities to Athene last year and we don't expect any material required contributions to our pension plans for the balance of this decade.”

“everything that we have articulated to you where we would guide in on service revenue growth, what we think the operating margins are going to be within the business, our EBITDA performance is all still very much in check relative to what we see going on there.”

“We're confident we're going to be able to do that in 2024.”

“We've expanded our nationwide 5G network and are on track to reach 200 million people or more with mid-band 5G spectrum by the end of the year.”

“We're tracking in line to meet or beat our consolidated financial targets and we're raising our full year adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow guidance today.”

“We're off to a strong start as we execute on our plan to generate $2 billion plus of incremental cost savings within the next three years and we're confident in our ability to achieve this goal.”

“Our CapEx for the year is going to mirror what we did last year. So you should expect you're going to see something in the fourth quarter that delivers a number that reflects something very similar in the neighborhood of what we did last year.”

“we also expect with the phase-out of the 2017 tax incentives, bonus, appreciation, interest limitations, we're going to pay more taxes next year.”

“we would anticipate DIRECTV contributions to decline along, consistent with the secular decline of that business.”

“you couple that with a step-down in CapEx from the elevated levels we've been at in ‘22 and ‘23.”

“We continue to expect to grow our Mobility business very nicely as well as continue to drive growth in our fiber broadband business.”

“I would expect we have a strong seasonal fourth quarter like we typically have in the industry and I don't see that changing right now.”

“we feel we are in a solid position and expect to address near-term maturities as they come due with cash on hand.”

“we have also incrementally reduced our short-term direct supplier and vendor financing obligations in the third quarter, and we expect to continue to do so in the fourth quarter.”

“we now expect low double-digit declines for the full year.”

“As the transition to electric vehicles continues, we expect a tailwind from our consistent success in connected cars since EVs consume more data bandwidth.”

“Given the better-than-expected broadband revenues we've achieved so far this year, we now expect to deliver 7% plus broadband revenue growth for the year.”

“We expect to move past elevated capital investment levels as we exit the year.”

“We're also now tracking to about $16.5 billion free cash flow for the full year.”

“we now expect to grow adjusted EBITDA by better than 4% versus our prior guides of 3% plus.”

“we remain committed to our dividend payout level and expect its credit quality to consistently improve.”

“Over time, we expect this evolution to drive significant operating efficiencies as we sunset legacy infrastructure that no longer meets our customers' needs.”

“I'm not optimistic that there's customers that are paying monies on BEAD supported infrastructure builds that impact the 2024 financial plan. I think this is going to be a 2025 plus thing”

“But look, I feel really comfortable about our ability to continue to add along the clip that we're adding right now, because we're more dependent on share take than we are on mover activity.”

“Through the end of the second quarter, we are at around $175 million POPs covered, well on track to deliver on the $200 million we had guided to earlier in the year.”

“We feel really comfortable about our growth characterizations that we've given you in our guidance and what we're going to see in accretion and service revenues.”

“As a result, we are on track to achieve full year free cash flow of $16 billion or better.”

“Given our momentum to date, we are confident in delivering adjusted EBITDA growth of better than 3%.”

“I do believe that as we simplify given how we allocate costs in the business and our reporting, the company and we start to shutter some of that square mileage, yes, that's going to help contribute to accretion back into the margin structure of the going-forward broadband business in our consumer markets.”

“Yes. Simon, just to be clear, I said it in my commentary. We are past peak investment as we exit this year. And we'll give our guidance at the same time as we usually do. But clearly, we don't expect to be at the levels of capital you've seen us invest in 2022 and 2023.”

“Yes, as we said, we gave pretty clear guidance that we would be around the same levels as we were last year.”

“I don't see anything that gives me near term concern about demand.”

“By the end of this year, we expect to reduce net debt by around $4 billion, excluding any potential FX impacts which will put us at about the three times range for net debt to adjusted EBITDA.”

“So going forward, from now until the first half of 2025, we expect to increasingly use our free cash flows after dividend to reduce debt and at a faster pace.”

“Looking forward, in the fourth quarter we expect to make final clearing payment of about $2 billion tied to our 2021 spectrum acquisitions.”

“We believe there is runway to continue this growth.”

“And cash tax is about $1 billion higher in the second half of the year versus the first half of the year.”

“These improvements are expected to be partially offset by lower cash distributions from DIRECTV of about $500 million in the second half of the year relative to the first half.”

“And lastly, we expect other working capital improvement of roughly $1 billion in the second half of the year relative to the first half of the year, including higher non cash amortization of deferred acquisition costs.”

“Four, and as I mentioned earlier, we expect full year adjusted EBITDA growth of more than 3%.”

“Two, we anticipate device payments to be about $4.5 billion lower than the first half of the year.”

“One, we expect capital investments to be about $1 billion lower in the second half of the year after peaking in the first half.”

“We expect free cash flow of about $11 billion for the remainder of 2023 weighted towards the fourth quarter.”

“For the first half of 2023 compared to the first half of 2022, free cash flow was up about $1 billion and we expect our cash generation to accelerate from here.”

“We expect to move past peak capital investment levels as we exit the year.”

“We are on track to deliver our full year adjusted EBITDA guidance.”

“We feel good about our ability to accomplish this goal, while providing an attractive dividend with improving credit quality as we expect to increase cash generation over time.”

“So we feel really good about being able to deliver 16% or better.”

“On the GigaPower side, we're in good shape. We're very close to closing on the transaction. You should expect that imminently.”

“I'll restate that we embedded expectations for a comparatively slower macro backdrop in our full year outlook and, therefore, remain on track to deliver on our full year guidance.”

“We remain confident in our full year outlook for free cash flow of $16 billion or better.”

“We remain on track to achieve our $6 billion plus cost savings run rate target by the end of the year, if not sooner.”

“The networks are going to be scaled as we exit this year. And I think you're going to start to see the new application to start to pop up as a result of that.”

“Those two things, coupled with our elevated CapEx relative to our full year guide, hurt Q1 to the tune of $3 billion to $4 billion, and we expect that to turn during the course of the year just mechanically.”

“We expect net debt to decline this year and thereafter.”

“And when we normalize out for one-time comparison items in the quarter, we still see the same underlying trends and continue to expect full year results aligned to what we guided in January.”

“As a reminder, the first quarter is typically the high watermark for device payments, and we expect payments to progressively get lower as we make our way through the balance of the year.”

“We expect to increase cash generation over time, which will allow us to continue delivering an attractive dividend with improving credit quality.”

“And as we reduce our copper services footprint and related legacy infrastructure, we expect to consistently improve our margins, grow EBITDA and, ultimately, improve our capital efficiency.”

“In fact, we believe we can further accelerate cost takeouts as we progress through the year.”