iPhone 5s, Galaxy S5, Other Device Sales Drive Verizons Big Quarter

Verizon’s full earnings report is still more than a week away, but we’re getting a preview of what we can expect to hear.

CEO Lowell McAdam told an investor conference on Thursday that Big Red added more than 1.4 million postpaid customers (net) – those are the most valuable – in the second quarter. That was more than double its increase in the first quarter.

Sales of smartphones such as Apple’s iPhone 5s and the Samsung Galaxy S5, as well as a record number of tablet PC additions made up the bulk of those new subscriptions. McAdam said to expect postpaid churn to be low when more details come out on July 22.

Those numbers likely mean solid revenue and profit, but we’ll have to wait a couple of weeks to find out. Last quarter, Verizon’s earnings were way up thanks in big part to wrapping its acquisition of the rest of Verizon Wireless from Vodafone that it didn’t already own.

These results will, at least for now, silence some of the critics who say postpaid is going the way of the Dodo. T-Mobile, which did away with postpaid contracts last year, nabbed more new customers than Verizon and AT&T combined in the first quarter. This might turn that trend on its head. 

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