Tuesday's trading saw Verizon’s stock drop from $46.52 to $42.99, while AT&T fell from $27.24 to $25.66. T-Mobile also took a hit, sliding from $267.50 to $255.83. Frontier saw a more modest decrease, dipping slightly from $36.17 to $35.90.
While the apparent sell-off was no way near as dramatic as the turbulence caused by the DeepSeek debacle earlier this year, the downward pressure followed comments from Verizon’s chief revenue officer, Frank Boulben, who warned of “soft” subscriber growth in the first quarter.
Subscribe today for free
Speaking at Deutsche Bank's Media, Internet, and Telecom conference, Boulben highlighted the uncertainty around Q1 subscriber numbers, noting that competitors were aggressively offering off-season promotions to attract customers in an already saturated market.
Reuters reported that Verizon would scale back such promotional campaigns, a strategy that investors appeared to react negatively toward.
“When we see less demand, we pull out of promotion. When we see demand picking up, like in March, we come back with the new promotion,” Boulben said. “It's been a challenging quarter from a competitive intensity standpoint.
“As far as we're concerned, we have a tough compare year-on-year. So gross adds this quarter are going to be probably soft.”
Despite the apparent selloff, Verizon's fourth-quarter earnings painted a more optimistic picture, suggesting the company was "well positioned" for growth in 2025.
The telco giant added 568,000 new postpaid phone subscribers and 408,000 broadband connections, of which 373,000 were fixed wireless access.
Verizon's stock partially recovered later in the day, climbing back slightly to $43.43 as the company continues to focus on increasing its base of monthly-bill-paying wireless subscribers.
RELATED STORIES
Verizon taps Samsung, Qualcomm for first multi-vendor RAN deployment
Tech giants weather DeepSeek storm with strong AI-led Q4 earnings
