U-Verse Growth Is Slowing

7:00 AM -- AT&T’s latest quarterly numbers reveal a slowdown in U-verse TV and broadband growth. AT&T added 239K U-verse TV customers in 3Q09, compared with 248K in 2Q09 and 284K in 1Q09. The slowdown in broadband is even more dramatic. AT&T signed up 96K new residential wireline broadband connections in 3Q09, compared with 110K in 2Q09, nearly a 13% difference.

Even with the TV slowdown, I suspect we’ll find AT&T is still adding more net new subscribers than its cable and DBS competitors, as it did in 2Q09. But, I wonder if this slowdown shouldn't be noted. These should be "hyper growth" times for U-Verse TV. It’s supposed to be getting in stride, picking up steam, whatever cliché you want to use -- not slowing down. If a slowing growth trend continues for AT&T, 3Q09 might be identified as the quarter in which the U-verse star started to fade.

— Bernardin Arnason, Managing Partner, Pivot Group , and Chairman, TelcoTV 2009

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