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Cingular Wireless Reports 283% Leap in Fourth-Quarter Earnings

7:00 am on January 25, 2007 | Category: Business, Corporate, Telecom Services, Wireless

America’s largest cell phone carrier, Cingular Wireless, has released some very impressive subscriber growth and profit figures for the last three months of 2006, it’s final quarter as an independently managed joint venture.

The company generated a net income of $782 million for the fourth quarter, 283% higher than its results for the same period a year previous. Total revenue was up just over 10%, reaching $9.8 billion.

“We’ve done what we said we would do when we merged with AT&T Wireless,” commented Cingular CEO, Stan Sigman, after announcing the results. “We’ve hit and exceeded targets, ramped up performance every quarter. We just had the best quarter since the merger. And with the AT&T and BellSouth merger, we have a great set of assets as part of the new AT&T. And we will become even stronger.”

Cingular added about 2.4 million wireless subscribers in the fourth quarter bringing its total number of customers to 61 million. A growing percentage of the company’s customer base consists of prepaid cell phone users, however, which might not bode well for RPU (revenue per user) figures in the years to come.

Nevertheless, as Cingular transfers back to the AT&T Wireless brand name, it is secure in its position as the leading U.S. wireless provider. AT&T executives are hoping to further consolidate the company’s success with the exclusive launch of Apple’s long-anticipated iPod cell phone device this June.

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