Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ) posted 406,000 postpaid phone net additions in the third quarter of 2026, more than doubling the 184,000 recorded in the second quarter and marking the strongest third-quarter result in five years.

The telecommunications company also added 137,000 postpaid net accounts, which it said was its best performance in over a decade. Overall postpaid phone churn improved 4 basis points year-over-year to 0.94 percent, with Consumer postpaid phone churn at 0.87 percent. Promotional cost of acquisition fell 41 percent year-over-year and promotional cost of retention improved 30 percent.

Mobility and broadband service revenue reached about $23.5 billion, up 2.9 percent year-over-year, after 2.8 percent growth in the second quarter and 1.6 percent in the first quarter. The company said that growth is forecast to be approximately 4.0 percent in the fourth quarter of 2026.

Total operating revenue was $34.3 billion, up 1.5 percent year-over-year, reversing a 0.7 percent year-over-year decline in the second quarter. Equipment revenue fell 9.0 percent year-over-year after a nearly 20 percent drop in the second quarter. Verizon said the equipment decline resulted primarily from significantly lower upgrade volumes and a strategic decision to reduce spending on device subsidies.

Consolidated net income was $5.3 billion, up 5.2 percent year-over-year, with net income margin of 15.5 percent compared with 14.9 percent a year earlier. Consolidated Adjusted EBITDA rose 8.0 percent year-over-year to $13.8 billion, which the company said was the highest quarterly result it has ever reported. Adjusted EBITDA margin expanded from 37.8 percent to 40.2 percent. Earnings per share were $1.25, up 6.8 percent year-over-year; Adjusted EPS was $1.31, up 8.3 percent.

Cash flow from operations was $11.5 billion, up 2.2 percent year-over-year. Free cash flow was $7.8 billion, up 12.1 percent year-over-year.

Broadband net additions were 314,000, including 159,000 fixed wireless access and 155,000 fiber, versus 348,000 total broadband in the second quarter. Verizon said it now maintains 17.4 million total broadband connections, with more than half of new fiber customers choosing 1-gigabit-plus download speeds. The company continues to anticipate total fiber passings to exceed 32 million by year-end, remaining on track toward a target of 40 to 50 million fiber passings over the medium term.

Given the third-quarter performance, Verizon raised full-year 2026 guidance for a third consecutive quarter. It now expects postpaid phone net additions of 1.1 million to 1.2 million, up from the upper half of 750,000 to 1.0 million. Adjusted EPS guidance is $5.04 to $5.06, or 7.0 to 7.5 percent growth year-over-year, up from 6.0 to 7.0 percent. Cash flow from operations is expected to grow 3.5 to 5.0 percent year-over-year, up from 2.0 to 4.0 percent. Free cash flow is expected to approach 12.0 percent growth year-over-year, up from 9.0 to 10.0 percent. Mobility and broadband service revenue is expected in the upper half of annual guidance of 2.5 to 3.0 percent growth.

The company also said it signed an agreement valued at $2.0 billion or more with Amazon Web Services that establishes a commercial framework to scale distributed compute and meet the real-time demands of agentic and generative AI workloads.

Capital expenditures for the first nine months of 2026 were $11.9 billion. Verizon continues to expect full-year capital expenditures of $16.0 billion to $16.5 billion, inclusive of success-based investments for AI Connect. In the first nine months, it returned $12.8 billion of capital to shareholders, including $8.8 billion of dividends and $4.0 billion of share repurchases, and continues to expect to repurchase up to $4.5 billion for the full year.