AT&T CEO John Stankey (pictured) stated post-paid subscriber growth in Q1 marked the eleventh straight quarter it added more than 400,000 customers, but the rate of growth slowed year-on-year due to tighter market conditions.

The operator added 424,000 post-paid phone subscribers compared with 691,000 in Q1 2022, but Stankey stated the slower growth rate wasn’t a cause for concern as he expects the market to normalise to pre-Covid-19 (coronavirus) levels.

He noted consumers at the lower-end of the phone market might be extending the use of their current devices instead of upgrading due to financial constraints.

On the business side, he stated lay offs by large companies along with more employees returning to office locations further eroded the demand for phone upgrades.

AT&T’s post-paid phone churn of 0.81 per cent was up slightly from 0.79 per cent.

Post-paid phone ARPU of $55 was up 2 per cent.

Wireless revenue increased 2.5 per cent to $20.6 billion as a rise in the service figure was partially offset by a decline in equipment sales.

AT&T added 272,000 fibre broadband customers.

“Despite high promotional activities seen in parts of our industry, we continue to achieve consistently low churn levels, while increasing the take rate of our high-value 5G and fibre plans,” Stankey stated.

Overall revenue increased 1.4 per cent to $30.1 billion, with net profit declining from $5.1 billion to $4.5 billion.

“We believe our results demonstrate that the customer-centric strategy we launched almost three years ago continues to deliver the right mix of quality subscriber and profit growth that will prove sustainable over the longer term,” the CEO stated.

He noted the company remained on track to achieve a more than $6 billion run-rate cost savings target before the end of 2023, which would include additional reductions in the company’s staff.