Wireless Competition Intense in Early Months of 2025: Verizon
Verizon Chief Revenue Officer Frank Boulben warned Wednesday that the carrier had a rocky start to 2025 in subscriber churn. Speaking at a New Street financial conference, Boulben said Verizon ended its holiday promotions in January, as it does every year. “For the first time, certainly since I've been with Verizon, our competitors didn't follow,” he said. AT&T and T-Mobile buyout promotions “have been particularly aggressive,” he said. “We've seen a lot of switching activity as a result.”
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Communications Daily is required reading for senior executives at top telecom corporations, law firms, lobbying organizations, associations and government agencies (including the FCC). Join them today!
Yet Verizon increased prices, which will boost revenue by more than $1 billion, Boulben said. “I'll do that trade-off any day, but it created elevated churn for us in Q1.” He also said Verizon’s myPlan offer was its most successful price plan in years, with about half the customer base using it. “That's the fastest migration I've ever seen.”
New Street’s Jonathan Chaplin asked if Verizon’s network is “better enough” to justify higher wireless prices than T-Mobile. “The network is better,” Boulben replied: Verizon covers 500,000 more square miles in the U.S. than T-Mobile, and that’s while its C-band spectrum is still being deployed.