By Senad Karaahmetovic
Shares of AT&T (NYSE:T) are trading almost 3% higher in early Thursday trading after the company raised its full-year profit guidance.
For Q3, AT&T posted an EPS of $0.68 on revenue of $30 billion, higher than the consensus of $0.61 on sales of $29.87 billion. The company also added 964,000 wireless postpaid net adds, beating the average analyst estimate of +913,399. Similarly, the wireless postpaid phone net adds came in at +708,000, while analysts were looking for +631,066.
The company said it remains on track to achieve over $4-6 billion run rate in cost savings.
"We remain confident in our ability to achieve, or surpass, all our financial commitments for the year, while still investing to bring our customers the industry’s best services," CEO John Stankey said in press release.
"Our disciplined go-to-market approach is helping drive healthy subscriber growth with high-quality customers."
AT&T raised its full-year EPS forecast to at least $2.50 from the prior range of $2.42 to $2.46. The new forecast is somewhere in line with the consensus of $2.51.
"We now expect to achieve wireless service revenue growth in the upper end of the 4.5 percent to 5 percent range," the company stated.
Goldman Sachs analysts said AT&T delivered "solid" results.
"We expect a positive reaction in the stock reflecting strong subscriber KPIs across Mobility and fiber and AT&T’s improved outlook for wireless service revenue growth and adjusted EPS," the analysts wrote to clients.