- Verizon lost 9,000 postpaid phone connections in Q2
- The prepaid group added 50,000 mobile phone customers, its fourth straight quarter of growth
- Verizon posted wireless service revenue of $20.9 billion, pleasing investors and analysts alike
Verizon lost a net 9,000 postpaid phone customers in the second quarter of 2025, largely because it raised prices on phone plans and didn’t respond to rivals’ aggressive promotions. But it wasn't all doom and gloom.
The operator did manage to add 50,000 mobile phone customers in its prepaid division, which, until recently, has performed pretty horribly ever since Verizon entered the prepaid space in earnest with the 2021 acquisition of TracFone.
Now, Verizon’s seen four straight quarters of growth in its prepaid business and it can legitimately say it’s doing a decent job of juggling several different prepaid brands.
“We're seeing good results across all of our main brands, whether it's Straight Talk, Visible or Total Wireless, and we continue to scale the distribution there,” Verizon CFO Tony Skiadas said during the company’s Q2 conference call today. “We now expect prepaid will be a contributor to service revenue growth in the in the second half of 2025, so we feel good about the progress and the momentum we have in the prepaid business.”
But back to the postpaid business. To put a positive spin on its Q2 results, Verizon emphasized how it’s not going to do whatever it takes to make the net additions look good, especially if it hurts the bottom line.
“We're going to continue to be very financially disciplined,” said Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg. “We will not sacrifice our financials” to get net adds “if it doesn't make sense, if it's too expensive.”
That echoed what Skiadas said. “Our goal is to improve volume year over year, but we will not do this at the expense of delivering on our … key financial priorities. This past quarter, we achieved strong sales, focusing on high quality customers, without overspending for growth, even with public sector challenges and ongoing consumer postpaid phone churn pressure, we maintained our financial discipline” within the consumer segment.
In Q2 2025, Verizon said it led the industry with wireless service revenue of $20.9 billion, up 2.2% over last year’s second quarter. Wireless equipment revenue of $6.3 billion was up 25.2 % year-over-year. Cash flow from operations totaled $16.8 billion in the first half of 2025, up 5.2% year-over-year.
Investors responded by driving up Verizon shares by more than 4%, to $42.58 at one point this morning.
Analysts on Verizon’s Q2
A smattering of reports from financial analysts gave Verizon overall good marks, though it’s unclear if Verizon will meet its previously stated target of adding more postpaid phone subscribers in all of 2025 compared to 2024. Vestberg didn’t explicitly state that in today’s conference call.
“Overall, the quarter was solid,” with total service revenue +6.0% ahead, EBITDA +1.1% ahead and guidance for EBITDA, earnings per share and free cash flow all increased, said BNB Paribas analyst Sam McHugh in a note for investors.
“We think that despite mixed subscriber results, Verizon delivered solid financial results and are encouraged by the increased financial guidance. We believe that Verizon is balancing growth in financial results with wireless and internet subscriber growth,” wrote Edward Jones Analyst David Heger in a report to investors.
Craig Moffett of MoffettNathanson Research pointed out that Verizon’s weaker postpaid results combined with better results in prepaid means Verizon’s overall rate of retail phone subscriber growth turned positive for the first time since 2022.
But he was more harsh about Verizon’s overall strategy, which at one point could be summed up in two words: best network. Verizon certainly isn’t backing away from that message – Vestberg pointed out results from J.D. Power and Root Metrics during the earnings call. But most observers in wireless, including network testing firm Ookla, give the “best network” title to T-Mobile, Moffett noted.
Verizon certainly doesn’t have the lowest prices, either – its prices traditionally have been the highest in the industry. “So what, precisely, is Verizon’s value proposition,” Moffett wondered. “Well … we’re not sure. And therein is the problem. Verizon appears to be pursuing a ‘little of everything’ approach. That’s not a bad course of action, to be sure. It’s just a tough one to explain. And not just to customers, but to investors as well.”
Bits and Bytes from Verizon’s Q2
- Total fixed wireless access (FWA) net additions of 278,000 were down 26.5% from a year ago and missed analyst consensus estimates of 304,000 by 8.6%, Moffett noted. The company reiterated plans to hit 8 million to 9 million total FWA subscribers by 2028.
- Vestberg said the company’s C-band deployment is ahead of schedule, and it plans to cover 80%-90% of its planned cell sites by the end of 2025, with nearly all sites now standalone (SA) 5G capable.
- The company is on track to close the acquisition of Frontier in the first quarter of 2026. Vestberg said he’s encouraged by Frontier’s performance and he looks forward to accelerating Verizon’s fiber expansion with Frontier.
Asked about the significant spectrum sales anticipated by the One Big Beautiful Bill and Verizon’s appetite for more spectrum, Vestberg stuck to the politically correct answer for a member of CTIA, the U.S. lobbying group that is spending much of its time in Washington, D.C., angling for more spectrum for the wireless industry.
“We feel good about the position we have and we are encouraged that the government is planning, over time, to bring more spectrum to the markets for the competitiveness of the United States of America,” he concluded.