New CEO strategy showing initial success! Verizon (VZ.US) ends 13-year "churn curse" in Q1 and raises profit guidance.

United States' largest wireless carrier Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ.US) announced its first quarter financial report for 2026 on Monday, with several key indicators surpassing market expectations. Under the leadership of new CEO Dan Schulman, who has been at the helm for six months, the company successfully reversed its long-standing trend of user losses, achieving net growth in mobile users and surpassing Wall Street's expectations of user losses, causing the stock price to surge by 5% in pre-market trading. Verizon reported that the company achieved operating revenue of $34.4 billion in the first quarter, slightly lower than the expected $34.8 billion. Adjusted earnings per share for the first quarter were $1.28, higher than the market's expectation of $1.21, marking the highest quarterly growth rate since 2021. The company's adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) - a key indicator of financial health - reached $13.4 billion, the highest in the company's history. The company also raised its full-year adjusted earnings per share guidance to $4.95 to $4.99. CEO's Strategy Showing Initial Success Verizon added 55,000 new mobile users in the first quarter, marking the first time since 2013 that the company achieved positive growth in mobile users in the first quarter, with an improvement of 340,000 users compared to the same period last year. Analysts had previously expected the company to lose about 89,200 users. Verizon stated in a statement on Monday that the total number of new mobile users for the year will fall at the high end of the previously forecast range (750,000 to 1 million). Boosted by this news, Verizon's stock price rose by 5% in pre-market trading in New York on Monday, and as of the time of writing, it had increased by 1.36%. The stock has risen by 14% so far this year, while AT&T has risen by 5.5% and T-Mobile US has fallen by 6.5%. The release of these performance figures comes at the six-month mark since former PayPal CEO Dan Schulman took over as CEO of Verizon. He was appointed to lead the wireless giant last year with the task of stemming continuous user losses. Schulman recently admitted that Verizon could no longer rely solely on the slogan of having the "best network" and that the company's new strategy focused on significantly improving customer experience. Verizon has also attracted attention from users through clever marketing campaigns. Last month, a four-and-a-half-minute ad featuring popular actor Connor Storrie from the hit show "Blood Rivals" went viral on social media. Intense Competition in Promotions Competitors AT&T and T-Mobile are continuously increasing discounts and incentives to attract users to switch providers, with offerings such as AT&T's new OneConnect all-in-one "subscription" service. Verizon's current promotion strategy includes offering top-of-the-line phones, such as the iPhone 17 Pro, for free to new line users, as well as bundling Samsung TVs with broadband packages. The company added a net of 341,000 home and enterprise broadband users in the quarter, which included users from the acquisition of Frontier Communications. It is worth noting that Verizon has adjusted its reporting framework and will no longer separate out the detailed indicators of enterprise broadband and consumer broadband in the future. Earlier this year, Verizon completed a $20 billion acquisition of fiber optic internet infrastructure operator Frontier, expanding its fiber network coverage significantly and overcoming weaknesses in fixed broadband. As of January 20, the financial contribution of this division has been integrated into Verizon's performance. Verizon stated that it has repaid about half of Frontier's debt since the acquisition was completed and expects to have repaid all of the debt by the end of the year. Verizon is the second of the three major wireless carriers to release its financial report. AT&T previously submitted a mixed first-quarter report, with wireless service revenue falling short of expectations, partially offsetting the positive sales and profit exceeding expectations. T-Mobile will release its financial report on Tuesday, which may lead analysts to inquire about the possible merger with its parent company, Deutsche Telekom.