AI is a major force shaping this year’s list—but it’s far from the only story.

World's Most Admired Companies

The corporations on our annual list of the world's 500 largest companies combined to generate $41.7 trillion in revenue over the past year.

Fortune Global 500

Almost $20 trillion in revenue—and a record-breaking $1.87 trillion in profits. Introducing the 2025 Fortune 500, the definitive list of the biggest companies in America.

Fortune 500

The 300 companies on this year’s list brought in over $12.6 trillion in revenue for the latest 12 months, with the median revenue figure at $22 billion.

America's Most Innovative Companies

Leaders in all industries rely more than ever on Big Tech—and appreciate the giants that deliver, at scale, without drama.

The corporations on our annual list posted aggregate revenues of $41 trillion for the second year in a row.

The Fortune 500, in its 70th year in 2024, ranks the biggest U.S. companies by revenue.

The 200 companies on this list are transforming industries from the inside out.

The 26th edition of the list shows how much esteem Big Tech giants command among other business leaders.

The 25th Fortune World’s Most Admired Companies list suggests that tech giants’ peers respect them as much as ever.

The corporations on our annual list of the world’s largest companies delivered a record $41 trillion in aggregate revenues.

GLOBAL-500-2023-ATT

The 300 companies on this list are transforming industries from the inside out.

The Fortune 500, in its 69th year in 2023, ranks the biggest U.S. companies by revenue.

F500 2023-ATT

AT&amp;T falls 17 spots on this year’s list. The decline largely reflects the company’s 2021 divestiture of its Time Warner and DirectTV media and entertainment businesses; overall, revenue in 2022 was down 10% from the previous year. 
<ul> 
 	<li>AT&amp;T was able to draw more customers to its wireless phone business in 2022 with the help of discounts and trade-ins. In the last three months of 2022, AT&amp;T added more than 650,000 subscribers to one of the most lucrative parts of its business—postpaid phone ervice—outdoing some of its rivals.</li> 
 	<li>The company increased prices on its wireless plans in June 2022 to cope with inflationary pressures.</li> 
</ul>

Just as it dominates our economy, Big Tech now dominates Fortune’s annual ranking of corporate reputation.

Aggregate sales hit $37.8 trillion last year—an increase of 19%, the highest annual growth rate in the list’s history.

G500 2022-32-AT&T

Having acquired Time Warner and DirecTV in an attempt to become a major media player, AT&amp;T spent much of 2021 dealing with the fact that the attempt had ultimately failed. It sold off its underperforming media businesses, merging them into a new company, Warner Bros. Discovery, while reaping some $40 billion in cash to help reduce its debt load. Overall, AT&amp;T shed 28,000 employees over the course of 2021, as well as 14.5% of its share price. Despite the setbacks, AT&amp;T’s core businesses fared well: Its fiber internet service ranked No. 1 in customer satisfaction in 2021 based on an American Customer Satisfaction Index survey. AT&amp;T added 3.2 million phone subscribers in 2021, a tally that exceeded its net new customers gained in the previous 10 years combined. AT&amp;T is now focused on growing its 5G network and fiber-optic footprint.

This year’s Fortune 500 marks the 68th running of the list.

F500 2022 AT&T

Having acquired Time Warner and DirecTV in 2018 in an attempt to become a major media player, AT&amp;T spent much of 2021 dealing with the fact that the attempt ultimately failed. It sold off its underperforming media businesses, merging them into a new company, Warner Bros. Discovery, while reaping some $40 billion in cash to help reduce its debt load. Overall, AT&amp;T shed 28,000 employees over the course of 2021, as well as 14.5% of its share price. Despite the setbacks, AT&amp;T’s core businesses fared well: Its fiber internet service ranked No. 1 in customer satisfaction in 2021 based on an American Customer Satisfaction Index survey. AT&amp;T added 3.2 million phone subscribers in 2021, a tally that exceeded its net new customers gained in the previous 10 years combined. AT&amp;T is now focused on growing its 5G network and fiber-optic footprint.

After a year in which humanity leaned more heavily than ever on tech giants, see which companies topped Fortune's ranking of corporate reputation.

Total revenue for the world’s biggest companies fell 4.8% to $31.7 trillion this year—the first decline in half a decade.

G500-2021-026-AT&T

AT&amp;T CEO Randall Stephenson spent 13 years in command of the company, building a wireless and telecom giant and then acquiring DirecTV and Time Warner. But in June 2020 Stephenson retired, and his longtime lieutenant, John Stankey, took over. Stankey immediately faced plummeting revenue from the company’s movie production unit owing to cinemas being closed during the pandemic. Initially, that made it easier for him to shift new movie releases to AT&amp;T’s HBO Max streaming service, which added 7 million new U.S. subscribers in 2020 thanks to the arrival of blockbusters like Wonder Woman 1984 and hit shows like The Flight Attendant. Still, needing more money to fund AT&amp;T’s costly expansion into 5G wireless, Stankey sold 30% of DirecTV to private equity firm TPG, raising $8 billion. And in May 2021, the company announced its plans to spin off its WarnerMedia assets and merge them with Discovery—a stunning strategic about-face that represents an almost complete withdrawal from the “content” business.

This year’s Fortune 500 marks the 67th running of the list.

F500-2021-11-ATT

For an astounding 13th straight year, Apple claims the top spot in Fortune’s annual ranking of corporate reputation, based on a survey of almost 3,800 executives, directors, and analysts.

This year's Fortune Global 500 generated $33.3 trillion in revenues and $2.1 trillion in profits.

G500-2020-022-ATT

Revenue at the newly created communications and entertainment conglomerate increased 6%, but profits dropped 28% amid merger costs, pension charges, and changes in the value of some assets, among other items. CEO Randall Stephenson, in what would turn out to be his last year at the helm, focused on breaking down barriers in the company's WarnerMedia unit and creating a streaming video strategy to attract cord cutters. Now it will be up to new CEO John Stankey, who took over July 1, to keep all the pieces working in harmony—from an expensive new 5G wireless network to newly launched streaming service HBO Max.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 66th running of the list.

F500-2020-009-ATT

Revenue at the newly created communications and entertainment conglomerate increased 6%, but profits dropped 28% amid merger costs, pension charges, and changes in the value of some assets, among other items. CEO Randall Stephenson, in what would turn out to be his last year at the helm, focused on breaking down barriers in the company's WarnerMedia unit and creating a streaming video strategy to attract cord cutters. Now it will be up to new CEO John Stankey, who takes over on July 1, to keep all the pieces working in harmony—from an expensive new 5G wireless network to the rollout of new streaming service HBO Max.

Here are the World's Most Admired Companies for 2019 as ranked in their industries. See who made the list.

This year's Fortune Global 500 generated $27.7 trillion in revenues and $1.5 trillion in profits.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 65th running of the list.

Here are the World's Most Admired Companies for 2018 as ranked in their industries. See who made the list.

Our 2018 list of the 100 best companies as ranked by their employees. See which companies made the list.

Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 64th running of the list.

Here are the World's Most Admired Companies for 2017 as ranked in their industries. See who made the list.

Our 2017 list of the 100 best companies as ranked by their employees. See which companies made the list.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 63rd running of the list.

Here are the World's Most Admired Companies for 2016 as ranked in their industries. See who made the list.

This year's Fortune Global 500 generated $27.6 trillion in revenues and $1.5 trillion in profits.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 62nd running of the list.

Business insiders have spoken: Asked which companies they most admire, more than 4,100 executives, directors, and analysts chose these top 50 All-Stars.

The world's 500 largest companies generated $31.2 trillion in revenues and $1.7 trillion in profits in 2014. Together, this year's Fortune Global 500 employ 65 million people worldwide and are represented by 36 countries.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 61st running of the list. Wal-Mart claims the top spot again. See who made the list.

Global business is back. After limping through a worldwide financial crisis and economic slowdown, the 500 largest companies ranked by revenues shattered all sorts of performance records in 2013: They racked up combined revenues of $31.1 trillion, up 2.5% from 2012, and profits soared 27% to nearly $2 trillion. China’s 95 companies (up from 89 last year) posted $5.8 trillion in revenues. The U.S. has four fewer companies on the list than last year but remains (for now) the country leader, with 128 corporations on the list—including No. 1 Wal-Mart Stores—reporting $8.6 trillion in revenues. 

Wal-Mart stayed on top as its sales crept closer to half-a-trillion dollars. Apple moved into the top five. And UnitedHealth Group continued its steady climb. 

Perks

100% health coverage

Unlimited sick days

Telecommuting

Job sharing

Subsidized childcare

Compressed work weeks

Fully-paid sabbaticals

On-site fitness/subsidized gym

On-site medical care facility

Health insurance for part-timers

Sick days for part-timers

College tuition reimbursement

Student loan debt repayment

Medical facility at all locations

Hiring/staffing (past 12 Months)

Full-time and part-time job growth

# of job applicants

Jobs filled internally

# New graduates hired

Sector

Culture rank

Process rank

Product rank

Years on list

Previous rank

Key Financials (last Fiscal Year)

Revenues ($M)

Profits ($M)

Assets ($M)

Total Stockholder Equity ($M)

Profit Ratios

Profit as % of Revenues

Profits as % of Assets

Profits as % of Stockholder Equity

Earnings Per Share (last Fiscal Year)

Earnings Per Share ($)

EPS % Change (from prior fiscal year)

EPS % Change (5 year annual rate)

EPS % Change (10 year annual rate)

Total Return

Total Return to Investors (last year)

Total Return to Investors (5 year, annualized)

Total Return to Investors (10 year, annualized)

Industry

Current All-Star Rank

Previous All-Star Rank

Industry Rank

Previous Industry Rank

Overall Score

Innovation

People Management

Use of Corporate Assets

Social Responsibility

Quality of Management

Financial Soundness

Long-Term Investment Value

Quality of Products/Services

Global Competitiveness

AT&amp;T is among the world’s largest telecommunications companies, offering wireless communications, broadband internet, and entertainment services. The company held a decades-long telephone monopoly in the U.S. before a 1982 antitrust settlement broke it into parts. In 2023, AT&amp;T was the world’s largest telecommunications company by revenue. In 2022, AT&amp;T finished merging its spinoff WarnerMedia with Discovery, a reorganization that resulted in the creation of Warner Bros. Discovery.

Q4 2025

Q3 2025

Q2 2025

Q1 2025

Q4 2024

AT&T (T): Company Profile, Stock Price, News, Rankings

legacy

AT&T

at&t

Good morning, and welcome to AT&T's fourth quarter 2025 earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Should you need assistance during the call, please press star then zero, and an operator will assist you offline. Following the presentation, the call will be open for questions. If you'd like to ask a question, please press star then one, and you will be placed in the question queue. If you are in the question queue and would like to withdraw your question, you can do so by pressing star then two. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference call over to our host, Brett Feldman, Treasurer and Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you and good morning. Welcome to our fourth quarter call. I'm Brett Feldman, Treasurer and Head of Investor Relations for AT&T. Joining me on the call today are John Stankey, our Chairman and CEO, and Pascal Desroches, our CFO. Before we begin, I need to call your attention to our safe harbor statement. It says that some of our comments today may be forward-looking. As such, they are subject to risks and uncertainties described in AT&T's SEC filings. Results may differ materially. Additional information, as well as our earnings materials, are available on the investor relations website. With that, I'll turn things over to John Stankey. John?

Thanks, Brett, and Happy New Year to everybody. I appreciate you joining us today. As you can see in our earnings materials, we have a lot to cover, so I'm going to quickly summarize a few highlights from our results and then spend most of my time discussing how our investments and differentiated position support our long-term outlook for improved growth and significant capital returns. After that, Pascal Desroches will provide a little more color on our fourth quarter performance, plan changes to our segment reporting next quarter, and key drivers of our financial guidance through 2028. So our prepared comments are probably going to run a little bit longer than usual, but we'll allow a little extra time to take your questions.

During our Analyst and Investor Day at the end of 2024, we outlined our path to become the best advanced connectivity provider in America, and I believe our team executed well against this strategy in 2025. We met or exceeded all of our consolidated full-year financial guidance, driven by another solid year of 5G and fiber subscriber growth. We reported over 1.5 million postpaid phone net adds for the fifth consecutive year and over 1 million AT&T Fiber net adds for the eighth consecutive year. We also accelerated the growth of AT&T Internet Air with 875,000 net adds, which more than doubled our customer base from where we began the year. The result of this operating momentum was the best year for consumer broadband subscriber growth in a decade.

This strong growth is a result of over 5 years of executing a sustainable, investment-led business model that centers on providing customers with all of their advanced connectivity needs from one trusted provider. We also made progress on many of our capital allocation commitments in 2025. During the first half of the year, we achieved our target of net debt to Adjusted EBITDA in the 2.5x range and commenced a share repurchase program. Overall, we returned over $12 billion to our shareholders through dividends and buybacks, which was more than a 50% increase from 2024. Our improved financial flexibility and confidence in our investment thesis also positioned us to make opportunistic strategic investments that benefit our customers and ultimately our shareholders.

This includes our agreements to acquire spectrum licenses from EchoStar and fiber assets from Lumen, and we continue to expect both these transactions to close early this year. These transactions represent key building blocks that significantly expand the total addressable market for our advanced connectivity services in the years ahead. Our investments in 5G and fiber, both organically and through our acquisitions, have positioned us to accelerate and scale the execution of our strategy in 2026. This includes the pace of our fiber expansion. Within our traditional operating region, we continue to expect that our annual pace of fiber construction will ramp from 3 million new locations in 2025 to a run rate of 4 million by the end of this year. We also expect to accelerate the availability of our fiber internet services outside of these areas, following our acquisition of Lumen's fiber assets and build capabilities.

Including Gigapower and the fiber assets that we're acquiring from Lumen, we expect to reach over 40 million customer locations with our fiber services by the end of this year, up from 32 million at the end of 2025. Beyond 2026, we plan to expand our fiber reach by approximately 5 million locations annually through the end of this decade. We expect this to drive rapid expansion of our opportunity to sell fiber and 5G together to both households and businesses at unmatched scale. The size and pace of our fiber deployment has positioned us to achieve these objectives with consistent execution and a high degree of capital efficiency. Over the past two years, in an inflationary environment, our average deployment cost per fiber passing has increased by approximately 2% annually, and we expect a similar trend over the next three years.

While our internet strategy will remain fiber first... Our investments in wireless network modernization and spectrum materially expand our opportunity to offer our advanced internet services over fixed wireless to the right customers in areas where we do not reach with fiber. Today, we're able to offer advanced internet services over fiber or 5G to over 90 million customer locations across the country. You can see the benefits of our scale and the improved growth of our advanced home internet connections. During each of the past two quarters, we've added over 500,000 combined AT&T Fiber and Internet Air customers, which is nearly 30% growth in net adds versus the second half of 2024. Our convergence strategy is a winning play, both structurally and in the market.

During the fourth quarter, we once again saw acceleration in the portion of AT&T Fiber customers that also have our wireless services. Our fiber convergence rate climbed 200 basis points year-over-year to 42%, which is our fastest annual increase since we began tracking this metric. This is further evidence that where we have fiber, we win, with fiber and 5G. The impact of this success on our wireless business is material. We estimate that our share of postpaid phone subscribers is 10 percentage points higher in areas where we offer fiber than in areas where we don't. The power of our converged offers is evident across our business.

In areas where we offer converged services, we rank No. 1 in brand love and No. 1 in Net Promoter Score with consumers and small businesses in both wireless and internet connectivity, and we're No. 1 or No. 2 with medium-sized businesses and enterprises. The scores for our converged offers are not simply better than our standalone services, they're improving in most categories. So it's no surprise that our converged customers remain our most valuable, with lower churn and a propensity to take higher internet speeds, attach more wireless lines, and stay with us longer. Our acquisition of Lumen and fiber assets, which we expect to close in short order, is a key example of how we've positioned AT&T to materially improve share in home, internet, and wireless. We're acquiring a fiber network with only 25% customer penetration, well below AT&T fiber penetration of 40%.

We estimate that fewer than 20% of these customers also subscribe to our wireless services. This is less than half of the convergence rate we've achieved in our current fiber footprint. We already have extensive wireless distribution in Lumen geographies, and soon we'll have the network assets and deployment capabilities needed to offer customers a better choice for connectivity at home and on the go. When we complete our work at the fiber location, we believe we're able to offer that customer access to the internet on a lower marginal cost structure than any competitor, with industry-leading product performance. We see this as a structural advantage that provides us with the flexibility to price and position our fiber services to reach customers in underserved categories and geographies, and ultimately achieve higher penetration.

This includes value-conscious consumers who are currently being served by networks with lower capacity and higher marginal costs. Our ability to put the right offer in front of an expanding customer opportunity positions AT&T to compete on performance and value, and not by leading with uneconomical device offers. As we accelerate the expansion of our fiber availability, this is how we expect to go to market: with offers and marketing strategies that yield attractive returns by driving deeper fiber penetration and growth in high-value, converged customer relationships. We're also making progress towards our goal of discontinuing legacy services in the large majority of our footprint by the end of 2029. We stopped the sales of all targeted legacy copper-based services in 85% of our wire centers.

The FCC has approved our applications to discontinue copper-based services in more than 30% of our wire centers by the end of 2026. We appreciate the FCC and Chairman Carr's continued recognition, the importance of modernizing communications infrastructure, and remain committed to supporting our customers every step of the way. The transformation of our network and support infrastructure is also driving the transformation of our cost structure as we benefit from open technologies, simplify our business processes, and deliver a better customer experience. Last year, we achieved over $1 billion of cost savings, and we plan to accelerate efficiency gains across the company by leveraging AI, moving more customer transactions to digital, and achieving greater operating leverage as we grow our customer base.

We've been investing at the top of our industry for years, and we expect this to continue based on the capital investment outlook we provided through 2028. This outlook anticipates that our major capital projects will be substantially completed by the end of 2030 or sooner. As we complete these investments, we expect our capital intensity to decline from a high teens% of revenue to the mid-teens%... driving higher, durable, long-term cash flow. But our shareholders will see the benefit much sooner. We believe the nature of our sustained investments and execution against the priorities I just outlined, position us to drive improved growth now. That's exactly what's reflected in our long-term outlook. Over the next three years, we expect to drive accelerated growth in Adjusted EBITDA, double-digit Adjusted EPS growth, and strong Free Cash Flow.

We also expect to return $45 billion plus to our shareholders over the next 3 years through our attractive dividend and consistent pace of share repurchases. This represents nearly 30% of our market cap and over 75% of our expected free cash flow. Over time, we expect that our improved growth, declining capital intensity, and higher free cash flow will provide us with even greater flexibility to support enhanced shareholder returns. Over the past 5 years, we've evolved how we operate our business to be investment-led, customer-centric, and focused on being the best advanced connectivity company in America. This has changed how we talk about our company, and I think it reflects how we see industry assets reordering to compete with our success.

Beginning with our first quarter results, we plan to adopt new segment reporting that aligns with this reality, the ongoing transformation of our company through the end of this decade. Pascal will walk you through the details of our planned new segment reporting and long-term guidance in just a moment. At a high level, we'll begin reporting the growth in our domestic, wireless, and fiber-based businesses, which we refer to as Advanced Connectivity, separate from the results of our Legacy operations. By separating the performance of our Advanced Connectivity business from our declining Legacy segment, we believe investors will have greater transparency into the returns we're generating on our growth investments in 5G and fiber. I'd like to close by reiterating a point that I made last quarter, which is that this is a great time to be in our industry.

In my career, I've never seen federal policy this supportive of market-based investment in advanced networks. This welcome policy stance has been adopted at the front end of an AI revolution that we expect to increase the need for dense fiber networks and more symmetrical connectivity into and out of homes, businesses, and devices. We operate in a competitive marketplace. This is not new, and neither are the keys to success, which are investing in best-in-class technologies at scale in order to provide customers with connectivity that they can depend on at a good value. This is a winning play, and by running it well, I'm confident that we'll lead our industry in advanced connectivity service revenue and Adjusted EBITDA by the end of this decade. With that, I'll turn it over to Pascal. Pascal?

Thanks, John. We had a strong finish to the year and met or exceeded all of our 2025 financial guides. In my view, one of the key takeaways from our fourth quarter performance is that it demonstrates our continued success at driving profitable growth, even in a competitive operating environment. We achieved over 4% growth in consolidated Adjusted EBITDA during the fourth quarter, while expanding Adjusted EBITDA margins by 20 basis points. This reflects the margin gains we achieved from growth in 5G, fiber, and fixed wireless service revenues, driven by gains in convergence relationships while taking costs out across the company. We are also winning with the right customers, with the right offers, and we believe that our investment-led convergence strategy positions us to sustain profitable growth over the next several years.

Before I cover our long-term outlook, I want to highlight a few items from our fourth quarter and full year results. Adjusted EPS grew by over 20% in the fourth quarter to $0.52 and nearly 9% for the year to $2.12. This was above our 2025 guidance for adjusted EPS at the higher end of the $1.97-$2.07 range, with the upside primarily driven by a lower-than-expected effective tax rate and solid growth in adjusted EBITDA. Full year free cash flow was $16.6 billion, which grew by over $1 billion and came in towards the higher end of our 2025 guidance in the low- to mid-$16 billion range.

This includes cash taxes of $1.1 billion, excluding DirecTV, which were below the low end of the expected range by approximately $400 million. However, this cash tax benefit was offset by a decision to accelerate our planned pension funding by a similar amount. So in the quarter, the combination of lower cash taxes and higher pension contributions were effectively neutral to free cash flow. We made a $1.15 billion cash contribution to our employee pension plan in 2025 and expect to contribute an additional $350 million this year. As a result, we remain on track to contribute $1.5 billion of cash tax savings from provisions in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act to our employee pension plan by the end of 2026.

Looking ahead, we expect annual cash taxes of approximately $1 billion-$1.5 billion through 2028. Our cash tax outlook primarily reflects further assessments of expected savings due to this legislation. Our goal is to put these savings to work over the next three years to fund working capital and growth initiatives. As John discussed, we are planning to adopt new segment reporting beginning with our first quarter 2026 results. Our largest segment going forward will be called Advanced Connectivity, which primarily represents results for our domestic 5G and fiber services. In 2025, Advanced Connectivity drove about 90% of our revenues and over 95% of our adjusted EBITDA on a recast basis, and substantially all of our organic and inorganic investments support growth in Advanced Connectivity. Our Legacy segment represents results from our domestic services provided over our copper-based network.

We have a goal of discontinuing a large majority of copper-based services by the end of 2029 and are managing our Legacy segment to achieve this outcome. As John noted, the separation of our Advanced Connectivity results from our domestic Legacy operations should provide investors with a better framework for assessing the returns on our investments in 5G and fiber. For example, over the past two years, our consolidated adjusted EBITDA grew by over 3% annually, while EBITDA from Advanced Connectivity grew considerably faster at an average of more than 6% annually. We also expanded EBITDA margin in this segment each of the past two years, which highlights how we are achieving profitable growth across 5G and fiber services to both consumers and businesses, even in periods of increased competitive activity and while making significant investments to scale our growing fiber and fixed wireless footprint.

We've posted materials to our investor relations website that recast our results over the past three years under our planned new segments. We also intend to provide results for our mobility business as a supplemental disclosure for a transitional period. Now, let's talk about where our business is headed. In our earnings release, we provided long-term guidance through 2028 that anticipates improved growth in consolidated financial performance, driven by investments in our Advanced Connectivity segment. Here's how we expect to achieve that growth across our primary service categories. We expect total wireless service revenue growth in the 2%-3% range annually over the next three years. The primary driver of this outlook is growth in consumer and business customer relationships as we continue to gain wireless subscriber share through convergence in areas where we offer fiber and fixed wireless internet services.

Our outlook assumes a relatively stable trend in postpaid phone ARPU, as our consistent, disciplined approach to pricing is balanced by gains in under-penetrated categories such as value-focused customers, as well as growth in converged customer relationships, who enjoy a service discount that typically more than offset over time through lower churn and the purchase of additional services. We also continue to plan for an operating environment with elevated levels of new and existing customers that are eligible for device offers. While this has no impact on our service pricing, it does impact the calculation of ARPU as we amortize a portion of our device offers through our wireless service revenue. This was approximately a 90 basis points headwind to our reported postpaid phone ARPU growth in 2025, and our outlook anticipates a similar headwind this year.

We expect our advanced home internet service revenues to grow organically by 20%+ annually through 2028, which is consistent with the annual growth we have achieved in these revenues over the past two years. The primary driver of this outlook is growth in customer relationships as we expand the reach of AT&T Fiber and the availability of Internet Air as we complete our 5G network modernization and continue to deploy spectrum from our EchoStar transaction. Our long-term outlook assumes a lower contribution from ARPU growth than we have seen over the past few years. Similar to our approach in wireless, we intend to maintain a consistent approach to home internet pricing, balanced by gains in under-penetrated customer categories at different price points as we materially expand the availability of home internet services.

Our outlook also factors in the portion of our convergence discount that we allocate to internet services as we grow our converged customer base. We continue to expect that we will close our acquisition of fiber assets from Lumen during the first quarter, which will add approximately $900 million of annualized fiber revenues. So we expect that our reported growth in advanced home internet revenues in 2026 will exceed 30%. Our business customers continue to utilize a range of fixed connectivity services at different stages in their life cycles. Over the past few years, growth in our business, fiber and advanced connectivity services, which includes fixed wireless, has been more than offset by declines in business, transitional, and other services, which includes mature product categories such as VPN.

Our outlook anticipate that service revenues from business customers across wireless, fiber, and fixed wireless will accelerate over the next several years and more than offset expected continued declines in transitional and other services. Altogether, we expect that total business service revenues within the Advanced Connectivity segment will grow at a low single-digit CAGR through 2028. We also intend to maintain our cost transformation initiatives across the business. We achieved over $1 billion of cost savings in 2025, and expect to achieve an additional $4 billion annual cost savings by the end of 2028. We expect these savings will be driven by the operating efficiencies John discussed earlier, along with reductions in legacy operations and support costs.

Our long-term outlook does not anticipate a material contribution to EBITDA growth from our pending acquisitions until 2028, which is also when we expect these investments to become accretive to adjusted EPS. Putting this all together, we expect to achieve growth in consolidated adjusted EBITDA in the 3%-4% range in 2026, improving to 5% or better in 2028. We expect adjusted EPS to be in the $2.25-$2.35 range in 2026, with a double-digit three-year CAGR through 2028. For 2026, our outlook for adjusted EPS includes approximately $0.05 of dilution from standup costs and higher interest expense related to our transactions with Lumen and EchoStar, and an effective tax rate in the 22% range.

We also expect depreciation and amortization expense of about $20 billion annually through 2028, as incremental depreciation from our growth investments is offset by the roll-off of depreciated assets that have reached the end of their useful lives. For 2026, we expect free cash flows of $18 billion+, reflecting primarily growth in Adjusted EBITDA, lower pension contributions, and lower legal settlements, partially offset by higher capital investments and cash interest. We expect free cash flows to grow by $1 billion+ in 2027 and approximately $2 billion in 2028, driven primarily by growth in Adjusted EBITDA. As John discussed, we have plans to accelerate and scale the execution of our strategy this year, and we expect some upfront investments to drive this outcome will be reflected in our first quarter results.

This includes incremental spending as we prepare to integrate and scale the retail operations we've agreed to acquire from Lumen and investments to drive acceleration in the pace of our fiber deployment. We are also lapping approximately $100 million of one-time benefits we disclosed in the first quarter of last year. So in the first quarter of this year, we expect Adjusted EBITDA growth to be below the run rate we expect for the full year, with free cash flows in the $2 billion-$2.5 billion range. Before we take your questions, I want to cover our outlook for capital allocation and capital returns. We ended 2025 with Net Debt to Adjusted EBITDA of 2.53x and cash and cash equivalents of $18.2 billion.

During the fourth quarter, we closed on a $17.5 billion delayed draw term facility. Based on our strong balance sheet, ability to draw on this facility, and our outlook for $18 billion+ of free cash flow in 2026, we are in excellent liquidity position as we plan to close our acquisition of assets from Lumen and EchoStar early this year. Immediately following the closing of these transactions, we expect our net debt to Adjusted EBITDA to increase to approximately 3.2x and then to decline to approximately 3x by year-end as we grow Adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow. We also expect to receive cash from an equity partner that will also co-invest in the acquired Lumen fiber assets.

We continue to expect that our net leverage will return to a level consistent with our target in the 2.5x range within approximately 3 years following the closing of these acquisitions. We continue to expect that we can achieve our deleveraging objectives by maintaining a consistent approach to capital returns. In 2025, we returned over $12 billion to shareholders, including over $8 billion in dividends and over $4 billion in share repurchases. As we outlined in our earnings release, we expect to return $45 billion+ to shareholders during 2026 to 2028. Under this capital return plan, we expect to maintain our current common stock dividend with a consistent pace of share repurchases through 2028, including approximately $8 billion of buybacks in 2026.

Our board has authorized an additional $10 billion of share repurchases after we complete buybacks under the current authorization. This means we have the necessary board approvals to execute our planned share repurchases through approximately the end of next year. To wrap up, we executed well in 2025, and we're confident that we're positioned to drive improved growth and strong capital returns over the next 3 years. Thanks for listening to our extended presentation. Brett, we're now ready for the Q&A.

Thank you, Pascal. Operator, we are ready to take the first question.

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, please press star then one. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. At this time, we will pause to assemble our roster.

And while you're assembling that, I want to point out that Jeff McElfresh, our Chief Operating Officer, is joining us for the Q&A portion of the call. Thanks, Rocco.

... Thank you. And our first question today comes from John Hodulik at UBS. Please go ahead.

Great. Good morning, guys. Two questions, if I could. First, on the fiber convergence rate, 42% and increased by 200 basis points. John, where, where do you expect this level to get to over time, maybe, maybe over the course of the decade? And do you expect the sort of rate of penetration to continue to improve from here? And then follow up to that, do you think you can play catch up in the Lumen territory and get to those numbers? And then second, consumer wireline revenue growth looks like it slowed in the quarter. Could you just talk about some of the drivers of that slowdown?

I think, Pascal, you mentioned some of the discounting going on that side, and just how you expect that to progress as we look through 2026. Thanks.

Morning, John. So first of all, I do expect the convergence rate to continue to improve. And we've, I think, shared that we have an objective when we were talking to you in our investor call or our investor conference last December, that, you know, right now we've got plans in place, and we're gonna drive that to 50% and feel very comfortable with that. I don't expect it to stop there. You've heard me say many times that I think we're in a structural realignment of the industry, and ultimately this is going to be an industry of converged providers that operate assets that allow for consolidated services to businesses.

And if I think back, you know, looking in the rearview mirror on history, and you look at what bundled rates were when there were other compelling bundles in the market, you know, we approached periods of time where 80% of consumers were bundling. And certainly, you know, I would expect that at some point in time, over the long haul, you might see something similar to that occur. Whether it's 75% or 80% or 70%, I don't know where it settles in, but our expectation is that you're gonna continue to see improvement in that rate, ratably over time. And in fact, that's the realignment that we're dealing with here, which is, as churn goes up on unbundled customers by a bit, we're dealing with that problem right now.

Ultimately, the fix to that is to get to more consolidated customers that give us a better churn rate, and that realignment is what we're betting on in our financials moving forward. And, you know, simply put, if we finish this year at 32, finish 2025 at 32 million fiber passings, and we're gonna finish this year at 40 million, you know, just do the math on it, and that's how we're basically driving our revenue growth and our share and controlling our service revenues and what we're doing moving forward. In terms of our out of what I'll call the out of traditional, out-of-region footprint, I'll throw Lumen into that right now. We have traditionally, just like we did with Gigapower, been more conservative in our business case expectations as to how we perform in those footprints.

As I've shared with you previously, we started the Gigapower construct that way, and actually, we see ourselves in the early quarters of Gigapower, performing very similarly what we do in region. You know, whether or not we can hold that dynamic all the way through the life cycle over 3 and 4 years remains to be seen, but I'm really optimistic right now that we've seen better performance than, you know, what we might have assumed as we kinda do our traditional financial modeling.

We expect Lumen to be derated a bit, in what I would call terminal penetration, when it's all said and done, but if it's not, and we actually perform equal to what we do within our current footprint, that's gonna be upside in terms of our business case and our financial modeling and how we think about our future projections that we share with you and our guidance. So, that one will play out over the course of the next couple of years, and I'm confident the team's demonstrated that they can be pretty fluid and creative in how they approach these things. I'm sure we'll learn some new things and new tactics in how we operate in those markets that allow us to continue to get better.

On the consumer wireline side, you know, we were. I think part of it is if you kinda look at how we've ratably dealt with pricing over the year and tried to be clear and where, as I've said, look for opportunities where we can add value when we do price adjustments, so we manage the customer base effectively. That certainly has been one of the reasons that we've seen a little bit of a slowing on a comparative year-over-year basis. That doesn't mean that I think we're done with taking price opportunity. I think we're just being very careful and strategic when we do it in a intensely competitive market, and we'll continue to be that way.

Pascal, on his comments, clearly indicated to you, as we bundle more customers, we are making the decision at the front end to provide some better economics to customers to do that. We think that plays out effectively over time through the form of lower churn. But, when you do that, you, you tend to slow some of your growth on ARPU at the front end as you're adding the second product into the household. Again, as I said, on a call, I think last quarter, you know, that's more of a feature, not a bug, and we're being pretty deliberate about it.

When you hear us being able to continue to improve margin structure, even though you're seeing some ARPU dynamics soften a bit, look, that's a good combination, and I'll take that, and I think we can continue to run the business that way, given our opportunities for managing through the cost structure.

... And John, one other thing that I would add is, when you think about just the cadence of the quarter, there were some pricing adjustments made, probably in the November timeframe that didn't have a full quarter effect, that will have a full year effect going into 2026. And more importantly, we gave you our forward guide for our expectations of growth in advanced home internet. That's the combination of both our fiber and our fixed wireless products. We expect those to grow organically 20%+, and that's all before the positive impact of the Lumen territories, which should bring it over 30%. So we feel really good about how we're performing there, and it is right in line with our strategy.

Thanks. We'll take the next question, please.

Absolutely. Our next question comes from Benjamin Swinburne at Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning. I guess two questions around your long-term outlook. One is whether you guys are saving any capacity for, you know, meaningful spectrum investments. There's a, I think, potential for a lot, several auctions over the next couple of years under the current FCC. I know you guys obviously have the EchoStar transaction getting ready to close, but just any envelope for additional spectrum investments or just your view on any needs there would be helpful. And then I guess similar kind of question, more near term, definitely getting more questions from investors about a foldable iPhone and what that might mean in terms of consumer demand and upgrade rates.

Just curious if the 26 guidance incorporates any view at AT&T on, on sort of what that might mean for the business and the competitive environment? Thanks, guys.

Yeah, Ben, let me maybe start, and then I can have Jeff give you a little bit more color on the, the device. Yes, we have reserved capacity for other strategic options. My point of view on spectrum is, I think I indicated this when we did the EchoStar transaction, that by doing this transaction, I viewed it as preemptive and opportunistic for us. That allowed us to be a lot more strategic and judicious about what we do moving forward, and I still believe that's going to be the case.

My point of view right now is that the industry is lining up where there's particular spectrum bands that are most useful to particular players in the industry, and we should see a dynamic moving forward where it's less of a buffet rush with everybody moving for the exact same bands all at the same time. I think that that could be good over time, and I think we can all pick our moments when it's appropriate to go visit the buffet, and that may not require us to be as aggressive all the time.

I also believe part of the reason, you know, that we're so bullish on fiber and why we're investing the way we are is we are getting to a point where networks are densifying and the technology is getting a lot better at, you know, price points and how we radiate more deeply into networks. We get dynamics of how we offload as we pick up more combined customers. We have market share dynamics that play out. One should conclude that given the depths of the networks that are out there today, when, you know, we're all hanging 300 MHz off of the cell tower, this isn't the days where, you know, we're growing 10 MHz at a time on these networks. We've put large swaths of capacity out there.

We have a lot more flexibility in how we manage things, and that means that you maybe don't need to think it the same nationally about how you invest in spectrum assets as maybe you have done in the past, and that has a bit of an opportunity for you to think differently about returns and markets and investments as you move forward. But we'll be in a position to do what we need to do to sustain the business. You've heard me talk about how important spectrum is to this company and our business model, and we pay a lot of attention to it and try to make sure we have the degrees of freedom. On the foldable iPhone, I'd just offer a perspective, and Jeff can maybe go into a little more color.

There are foldable devices in the market today, and they are very capable devices, some really impressive ones. And if you look at the user base, who has a strong affinity for those manufacturers, and you look at the conversion rate of those that have left non-foldable devices to foldable, it's pretty predictable as to who sees a foldable device being a good form factor for them. And I think that's a good indicator that if you were to apply those same kind of acceptance factors and put it in and just say, just because there's a different manufacturer making them, is everybody suddenly going to be more in tune or desirous of a foldable device? The indications in the market would be that that's not a broadly applicable form factor.

It certainly has its place, and there's some utility that it brings, but I don't think this is gonna be the kind of thing where 80% of the base says they need that form factor. I have to move to Jeff. Do you have a point of view?

Not much to add to that, John, other than you should expect that AT&T will remain focused on the acquisition of quality customers. We'll be very disciplined in offering the right value proposition to the right customer segment. And then, we're not anticipating any significant elevation one way or another, as John just described.

Thanks, Ben. We'll take the next question, please.

Absolutely. Our next question comes from Peter Supino, Wolfe Research. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning, everybody. Two, if I may, the first, both on broadband, actually. First, regarding your comments on fiber ARPU, I think we all appreciated your point about mix and promotions and how those are accounted for in ARPU. At the same time, Comcast and Charter are behaving differently in terms of the way they price existing customer broadband rates. And so I'm wondering how you're thinking about the price of fiber for your existing subs, your retail rate outlook. And then a question about FWA growth. Looking out 2 years, it looks like your DSL base will be gone if we just extrapolate the recent decline rates. And I wonder, in that scenario, should we expect FWA sales to hold up?

If so, should we worry about a supply-demand problem in high-capacity broadband as that DSL demand goes away and three powerful carriers continue to try to grow DSL? Thank you.

Hi, Peter. Look, I've said it before, I think we're in a distinctly different place in cable. One is, we currently sit under their pricing umbrella. We're not at their levels, so we have a lot more degrees of freedom in how we manage our ARPUs and our various offers in the market, that they have. So, you know, it's one thing, I understand why they're having to make the changes they're making. They're priced higher and their product's inferior, and so they're the ones that's having to readjust to the market, not us. We've got the better product, and we're priced lower, and that's why this, this, this is a problem for them. And, as a result of that, I think we've got all the actions we need.

When you think about the fact that we have owners' economics on both our products, we can play with the value across, and we don't have to run one product to zero to make the other one worthwhile to somebody. I just think we're in a great place for us to be able to manage our value to the customer and what we bring out to them. And when you're doing it on the foundation of a better product, that's a good thing. I made the point I made in my comments for a reason. How do we continue to win and grow and share? We continue to grow our footprint. 32 million fiber passings at the end of 2025, 40 million at the end of this year. That's a growth rate that is...

We've never had that, and it's going to be 5 million a year thereafter. And when we work in that base and you have a product that people love, they love it, it's number one. I said that for a reason. It's priced competitively in the market. It performs better. You put a great wireless product with it. You have all the tailwinds you need to be able to continue to do the right things in the market, and there's a structural advantage on how that technology works and performs, as well as the cost of operating it once it's in service and what you do with it. And, and then, yeah, their DSL base is going to go away. That's by design in the plan. It probably can't happen fast enough.

You know, we're working really hard to try to make that done, get that done in a graceful fashion. The fact that we have access to the EchoStar spectrum has helped us tremendously in managing a lot of those customers into the right place, and it allows us to pre-position a bridge product, in some cases, before we have fiber deployed under this aggressive rate and pace that we're working through. And I don't worry about a supplier-demand problem. Market really isn't growing too much today, and it's pretty staid given the lack of home movement. So it's a tough environment right now. It probably won't stay that way.

At some point, I expect home switching to probably increase at some point, and that's going to be to our advantage when that happens, 'cause it'll open up a whole bunch of choices and jump balls that don't occur today that we're going to win more than our fair share on. And when I step back and think about the supply and demand, we win because we have a better product, and I, I, I'll take share as a result of that. So, no, I don't worry about it. We have, if you've noticed, our conversion rate on our fiber customers has been dropping like a rock. Most of our growth right now is in new accounts. So we know how to play in this market. We're giving you volume today, and we're going to continue to do it. Jeff, you want to add anything?

Thanks for the questions, Peter. We're going to go to the next one, operator.

Absolutely. Our next question today comes from Michael Rollins at Citi. Please go ahead.

Thanks, and good morning. A couple questions on wireless. So first, can you discuss the macro factors that you may be seeing that can influence postpaid phone growth for AT&T in 2026, whether it's population growth, including immigration, demographics, business, and the prepaid to postpaid transfers? And then second, how is AT&T responding to the promotional changes from your competitors to sustain your financial performance? And within this context, AT&T maintained the annual wireless service revenue growth guide of 2%-3%. And as you look into that, I'm curious if there's different contributing factors with respect to price and volume relative to what you anticipated when you established the target during the Analyst Day. Thanks.

Jeff, you want to pick that up while I take a sip of tea?

Yeah. Happy to. Thanks for the question, Mike. At a macro level, it's no surprise that the wireless industry itself is penetrated and very mature, and so you do see a lot of switching activity that's occurring between competitors. Are there macro factors that are slowing incremental new entrants into the traditional postpaid voice? Certainly, there is some aspect to that. But from our perspective, the plays that we've been running in this competitive environment have delivered not only-

... growth in our margins, but overall growth in customers, and so we're able to withstand some of the competitive dynamics. As we've mentioned before, and John's alluded to earlier in his remarks, we still see incremental opportunity in under-penetrated segments for AT&T, and those segments are being served at a growing accelerated rate for us with the plays that we're running around convergence. We still don't have the share we aspire to have in some value-conscious, price-sensitive segments. Think 55+ 1-2 line accounts and as well in the small and medium business segment, both of which we're seeing some success, and interestingly enough, we're seeing success in those segments as a result of our go-to-market convergence strategy. John kind of alluded to this a second ago.

AT&T (T) Q4 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

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