Verizon Adds 200K FiOS Customers in Fourth Quarter

NEW YORK - FiOS fiber optic services, Verizon Wireless services and handsets and strategic business products and services fueled Verizon's growth in 4Q2011, driving the highest year-over-year quarterly revenue increase in the telecommunications company's 11-year history.

The total return to shareholders for the full year was 18.2 percent, and Verizon CEO Lower McAdam said the company had "great momentum for 2012" and would expand its wireline margins in the coming year.

Average revenue per user (ARPU) continues to be much higher for FiOS customers than for customers on Verizon's legacy copper network. ARPU for FiOS customers totaled more than $148, rising approximately $2 year over year. Consumer ARPU for wireline services as a whole was $96.43. (FiOS services to consumer retail customers represented 61 percent of consumer wireline revenues in fourth-quarter 2011.)

Verizon added 201,000 net new FiOS Internet connections and 194,000 net new FiOS Video connections in 4Q2011, for a total of 4.8 million FiOS Internet and 4.2 million FiOS Video connections at year-end.

FiOS penetration (subscribers as a percentage of potential subscribers) also continued to increase. FiOS Internet penetration was 35.5 percent at year-end 2011, compared with 31.9 percent at year-end 2010. In the same periods, FiOS Video penetration was 31.5 percent, compared with 28.0 percent, respectively. The FiOS network passed 16.5 million premises at year-end 2011, up more than 900,000 from year-end 2010, though FiOS services are not marketed to approximately 3 million of those premises, many of them in multiple-dwelling-unit properties.

Verizon broadband connections totaled 8.7 million at year-end 2011, a 3.3 percent year-over-year increase. FiOS Internet connections more than offset a decrease in DSL-based high-speed Internet connections, resulting in a net increase of 98,000 broadband connections from 3Q2011. Total voice connections, which measures FiOS Digital Voice connections in addition to traditional switched access lines, declined 7.2 percent to 24.1 million - the smallest year-over-year decline since first-quarter 2006.