During the period, the company sold six million smartphones and rolled out its LTE/4G network ahead of schedule.
It further added 296,000 monthly contract customers to AT&T Mobility and sold 365,000 connected tablets which together helped to offset the decline in its wireless business.
“Our wireless network performance continues to be terrific,” said Randall Stephenson, chief executive at AT&T, in a statement.
“And that helped drive our best-ever first quarter for smartphone sales, improved wireless churn and strong growth in mobile data revenues.”
The company also increased its fixed-line revenue by 2%, thanks to returns from its U-verse fibre-optic package which grew by 31.5% year on year.
AT&T reported overall net earnings of $3.7 billion compared to $3.6 billion a year earlier; with Q1 2013 cash from operating activities coming to $8.2 billion, and capital expenditures totalling $4.3 billion.
The company said it expects capital spending in 2013 to sit at around $21 billion, with expected capital in the $20 billion range for 2014 and 2015.
Last month AT&T announced it would renew its service agreement with Shell.
