Telecom - Every Major Carrier Just Reported. The Subscriber War Has a New Shape
T-Mobile grew service revenue 4x faster than its nearest competitor. Verizon posted its first positive Q1 phone adds since 2013. AT&T hit record fiber adds. And cable is losing broadband but winning w
The Telco category is hot these days - just like the New York Knickerbockers after a big win last night. Hopefully they close it out tomorrow night and we avoid a nerve racking Game 7 on Saturday. That would be make Saturday’s Kentucky Derby Day extra fun though.
Missing from this Telco post is OpenAI’s mobile phone endeavors released earlier this week - we’ll cover that in Friday’s Gen AI post. Apparently Apps will be replaced by agents…
Telecom - all five major U.S. telecom companies reported Q1 2026 earnings in the last seven days. The picture that emerges is a category where the subscriber war is no longer about who adds the most phones - it is about who builds the most durable bundle of connectivity products across wireless, broadband, streaming, and mobile. Every carrier is now competing across every product line, and the advertising and marketing strategies are following that convergence.
T-Mobile Q1 2026 (April 28) - beat on EPS at $2.27 versus $2.05 expected on revenue of $23.11 billion, up 10.6% year over year. Service revenue rose 11% to $18.8 billion - more than four times the growth rate of its next closest competitor. Postpaid service revenue grew 15% to $15.6 billion. T-Mobile added 217,000 postpaid net accounts, up 6% year over year, with ARPA rising 3.9%. A record number of recent switchers cited network quality as the primary reason for choosing T-Mobile. Broadband net adds exceeded 500,000, making T-Mobile the fastest-growing ISP in the U.S. The company raised full-year EBITDA and free cash flow guidance and increased its 2026 shareholder return authorization by $3.6 billion to $18.2 billion. Net income declined 15% to $2.5 billion due to UScellular integration costs. Under new CEO Srini Gopalan, T-Mobile is widening the gap in service revenue growth and using network quality as the primary marketing message rather than price.
Verizon Q1 2026 (April 27) - adjusted EPS of $1.28 beat expectations of $1.21, up 7.6% year over year - the strongest quarterly EPS growth since 2021. Revenue of $34.4 billion, up 2.9%, slightly missed estimates. The headline is that Verizon posted its first positive Q1 postpaid phone net additions since 2013 - adding 55,000 subscribers, a 344,000 improvement from losing 289,000 in Q1 2025. Broadband added 341,000 subscribers including 214,000 fixed wireless and 127,000 fiber. Adjusted EBITDA hit a record $13.4 billion, up 6.7%. CEO Dan Schulman raised full-year adjusted EPS guidance to 5-6% growth and said postpaid phone net adds will finish in the upper half of the 750,000 to 1 million range. Schulman attributed gains to restrained promotional spending, lower churn, and a higher mix of customers new to Verizon. The turnaround narrative is real - Verizon is growing subscribers again by spending less on promos and more on service quality.
AT&T Q1 2026 (April 22) - adjusted EPS of $0.57 beat expectations of $0.55 on revenue of $31.5 billion, up 2.9%. Advanced Connectivity segment revenue grew 3.6% with operating income up 14.8%. AT&T added 584,000 total internet subscribers - 292,000 fiber and 292,000 fixed wireless - the best first quarter for internet adds in the company’s history. Postpaid phone net adds were 294,000, down from 324,000 a year ago, with churn ticking up slightly to 0.89%. Nearly 45% of advanced home internet subscribers now also choose AT&T wireless, representing the fastest organic growth in convergence rate the company has ever reported. AT&T reached over 37 million locations with fiber after integrating more than 4 million from the Lumen acquisition. The advertising signal is convergence - AT&T is marketing bundled home internet plus wireless as a single household relationship rather than separate products.
Comcast Q1 2026 (April 23) - adjusted EPS of $0.79 beat expectations of $0.73 on revenue of $31.5 billion, up 5.3%. The quarter was shaped by “Legendary February” - the Winter Olympics and Super Bowl generated record advertising sales of $2 billion and an additional $2.2 billion in media revenue. Peacock crossed $2.1 billion in quarterly revenue for the first time, with paid subscribers up 12% to 46 million, and CFO Jason Armstrong said the streamer will approach profitability for the first time in Q2. Wireless was the standout - 435,000 line additions were the best quarter on record, bringing total wireless lines to 9.74 million. But broadband lost 65,000 customers (improved from 183,000 losses a year earlier) and video lost 322,000 subscribers. Net income fell 35.6% to $2.17 billion as Olympics, Super Bowl, and NBA rights costs weighed on profitability. Comcast is now a company where wireless and streaming are growing while broadband and video shrink - the advertising story is shifting from cable to streaming and mobile.
Charter (Spectrum) Q1 2026 (April 24) - revenue of $13.6 billion declined 1% year over year. Net income fell 4.4% to $1.16 billion. Spectrum Mobile added 368,000 lines, bringing total mobile subscribers to 12.1 million - up 17% year over year and the fastest-growing mobile provider in Charter’s footprint. But broadband lost 120,000 customers, the core product the entire cable investment thesis is built on. Video losses improved to 60,000 from 181,000 a year earlier. Charter’s stock dropped 24% in a single session after earnings - the market has lost patience with broadband losses even as wireless grows. CEO Chris Winfrey called broadband pressure a “top of funnel issue” driven by low housing turnover and fixed wireless competition, not churn. The Cox acquisition is pending a California regulatory approval for a summer close. Charter plans to launch the Spectrum brand in Cox territories within months of closing, targeting $800 million in run-rate synergies.
The convergence race - every telecom company is now competing across the same product lines. T-Mobile is the fastest-growing ISP. AT&T is pushing 45% wireless-broadband convergence. Verizon’s fixed wireless is eating cable broadband share. Comcast and Charter are the fastest-growing wireless providers in their footprints. The subscriber war is no longer wireless vs. cable - it is bundled household connectivity vs. single-product relationships. The companies winning are the ones converting single-product customers into multi-product households, because multi-product customers churn at dramatically lower rates.
The streaming and advertising layer - Comcast’s Peacock approaching profitability changes the advertising math for the entire category. Peacock generated $2 billion in ad revenue during a single quarter driven by the Olympics and Super Bowl, with 46 million paid subscribers. Charter’s pending Cox deal adds scale to its ad insertion business. T-Mobile is increasingly positioned as a data-rich advertising partner through its household connectivity data. The telecom category is no longer just a connectivity story for advertisers - it is becoming a media and advertising platform story.
Pattern to watch - the telecom earnings just revealed a category where every competitor is converging on the same bundle strategy, but the economics of each bundle are very different. T-Mobile’s service revenue growth is 4x the nearest competitor’s, and it is doing it with the highest customer satisfaction scores in the industry. Verizon is growing again by spending less on promotions. AT&T is winning on fiber density. Comcast and Charter are winning wireless but losing broadband. The advertising implication is that telecom media budgets are shifting from acquisition-driven promotional campaigns toward retention, convergence, and household-level marketing. Verizon explicitly said restrained promotional spending drove their turnaround. T-Mobile’s CEO said network quality is the top reason switchers are choosing them, not price. Charter launched a $1,000 savings guarantee focused on bundled households, not single-product acquisition. Nobody on any of these earnings calls talked about increasing promotional ad spend - they talked about service quality, convergence rates, and bundle value. The brands growing fastest are the ones spending less on promos and more on service quality and bundle value.
Seller takeaway - the telecom advertiser conversation is now about household convergence, not individual product lines. T-Mobile, Verizon, AT&T, Comcast, and Charter are all competing for the same multi-product household. The marketing strategies diverge on how they get there - T-Mobile leads with network quality, Verizon with disciplined pricing, AT&T with fiber reach, and Comcast and Charter with bundled savings guarantees. For sellers, the question is which convergence story your account is telling and what media supports it. Promotional campaigns are losing share of budget to retention, loyalty, and service-quality messaging. The carriers spending the most on acquisition are not the ones growing the fastest - and the earnings just proved it.
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Sources for this edition include T-Mobile Q1 2026 earnings press release and PhoneArena, Investing.com, and Motley Fool coverage April 28 2026, Verizon Q1 2026 earnings press release and Yahoo Finance, Investing.com, and Motley Fool coverage April 27 2026, AT&T Q1 2026 earnings press release and CNBC, Yahoo Finance, and Minichart coverage April 22 2026, Comcast Q1 2026 earnings press release and CNBC, Bloomberg, Hollywood Reporter, and Broadband TV News coverage April 23 2026, Charter Q1 2026 earnings press release and Fierce Network, The Desk, and Motley Fool coverage April 24 2026.