AT&T Inc Q2 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

The following is excerpted from the question-and-answer section of the transcript.

Question: John Christopher Hodulik - UBS Investment Bank - Analyst : Great. Thanks, guys. A couple of I could. First, John, you talked about higher activity levels in the second half in wireless. And obviously, there's a lot of concern about upgrade rates with the new iPhone. I mean, are the comments you made just a function of sort of typical seasonality? Are you REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. JULY 24, 2024 / 12:30PM, T.N - Q2 2024 AT&T Inc Earnings Call expecting a sort of a new upgrade sort of initiate? And what does that mean, for the levels of churn? We've been saying and profitability and sort of overall competition in the sense, that's number one. And then number two you had some comments about Gigapower and the potential open access relationships. As it relates to Gigapower, any color you can give us on how that relationship or partnership is doing in terms of rollout and customer uptake? And then is there room for more of these relationships, since other third party open access providers? Are you talking to anyone else and how could they have that opportunities?

Question: Simon Flannery - Morgan Stanley & Co LLC - Analyst : Thank you. Good morning. I think we managed to get this far without mentioning ACP. I wonder if you could just give us an update what you've seen so far, what do you expect in the third quarter? And then coming back to the comment about in-region fiber, you've talked a few times about the 10 to 15, I think you're almost at 28 million locations, pretty near that 30 million. So help us understand out where you are on that evaluation process and what should we expect in terms of you giving us a new kind of map for the next three years or whatever, and how that flows through to CapEx, et cetera?

Question: James Schneider - The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. - Analyst : Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Two, if I may. First, on Fiber side, relative to the long-term fiber passings target of 40 million, 45 million which we talked about. Can you help us understand whether you're seeing stronger returns and actually accelerating the pace of build-out from here? And how roughly would you expect pace of additions or passings to add to trend in 2025? And then secondly, in terms of Internet Air, you mentioned that is now available for business nationally. Does that imply that the run rate of net adds could accelerate materially in the coming quarters? And how much headroom do you see in your overall network capacity relative to adding business fixed wireless subscribers. Thank you.

Question: David Barden - BofA Securities - Analyst : Hey, guys, thanks so much for taking the questions. John, I wanted to maybe go back to something you just said, which was that there's a race to convergence in the market, and I think that not everyone agrees that that's a true statement. That maybe it's more of a race for AT&T to exploit the opportunity it has in its footprint too converge as much as possible. You mentioned, that you've got a 500 basis points market share advantage in the areas where you've deployed Fiber. Could you kind of share more data that would support your argument that there should be a race to convergence. That AT&T is in a unique position to take advantage of these economics beyond simply market share. And then if I could. The second question would be, there's been a series of events over the course of the year network outages, data breaches, disclosures about previous data breaches. Is there anything that we need to know about how that's impacting either your go to market or the possibility of future financials. Thank you.

Question: Sebastiano Petti - JPMorgan Chase & Co - Analyst : Thanks for taking the question. Pascal, just want to see if I could, if we could follow up perhaps on the fibers $480 million one-timer to in the back half of the year that you anticipate from the wireless transmission. Maybe a little bit of color on what that is, perhaps there was this fully contemplated within guidance at the beginning of the year. REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. JULY 24, 2024 / 12:30PM, T.N - Q2 2024 AT&T Inc Earnings Call And then an additional question for John. Just kind of help us think about given where we are from an FCC perspective, with a lack of spectrum authority and maybe lack of a pipeline as well on the spectrum side, how are you and the team perhaps thinking about the spend and augmentation of the wireless network or how you're planning around that just kind of given those two dynamics? Thank you.

Question: Michael Ian Rollins - Citigroup Inc. - Analyst : Thanks and good morning. Two topics, if I could. First on mobility, just curious if you could further unpack where the strength in the postpaid phone that -- came from during the quarter. And if you're seeing any changes in the competitive landscape with some of the adjustments to the promotional strategies from some of the cable and MNO competitors? And second on the cost structure. I'm curious if you could share your progress on the multiyear cost-cutting targets? And how you're looking at the durability for EBITDA growth on a consolidated basis to potentially outpace the consolidated service revenue performance?

Question: Bryan D. Kraft - Deutsche Bank AG - Analyst : Thanks. Good morning. I have a question just on the industry. Investors are growing concerned over the potential for a volume slowdown in the wireless industry. And also that perhaps the industry is taking as much pricing power as it can for a while with the minimal room for further pricing actions. Just wanted to ask what are you seeing in the market as it relates to these issues? Do you share any of these concerns on either volumes or pricing power Thank you. REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. JULY 24, 2024 / 12:30PM, T.N - Q2 2024 AT&T Inc Earnings Call