Verizon Communications revealed that it achieved 350,000 retail postpaid net additions, including 197,000 phone net additions, driving 5G smartphone adoption to 20 percent of Consumer wireless phone customers in second-quarter 2021.
Verizon Consumer revenues increased 11.2 percent to $23.5 billion driven by wireless equipment revenues of $4.7 billion. Verizon’s total operating revenue rose 10.9 percent to $33.8 billion in the second quarter.

Verizon did not reveal the specific contribution of 5G business into the 11.2 percent increase in Consumer revenues.

Verizon Chief Financial Officer Matt Ellis said: “Our strong first half performance and the momentum in our business gives us the confidence to raise our total wireless service revenue growth guidance to between 3.5 percent and 4 percent, an update from prior guidance for 2021 total wireless service revenue growth of at least 3 percent.”

Capex

Capital expenditures in first-half were $8.7 billion supporting growth in traffic on 4G LTE network and the expansion of the 5G Ultra Wideband and 5G Nationwide networks. Capital expenditures related to CBand were more than $160 million in first-half.

“We are executing on our multipurpose network strategy and producing positive results in each of our five growth vectors, recording strong second quarter results. We are expanding our 5G Ultra Wideband and 5G Home markets,” said Verizon Chairman and CEO Hans Vestberg.

The telecom operator said capital spending will be in the range of $17.5 billion to $18.5 billion, including the further expansion of 5G mmWave in new and existing markets, the densification of the 4G LTE wireless network to manage traffic demands and the deployment of fiber infrastructure.

Expenditures related to the deployment of C-Band 5G network will be in addition to this amount. The company previously announced an incremental $10 billion of capital expenditures from 2021 to 2023, of which $2 billion to $3 billion is expected in 2021.

Verizon added 275,000 postpaid phone subscribers in the second quarter, as the reopening of its stores also helped drive subscriber growth.

“5G sell-through is clearly over 50 percent of total sales, and the second half of the year will see US carriers continuing to push to upgrade the base to unlimited 5G service plans,” said Jeff Fieldhack, research director at Counterpoint Research.

Verizon was recognized by RootMetrics as the best overall network performance for the 16th time in a row.