Wireless continues to boost Verizon profits

Verizon reported positive earnings of $1.8 billion for the first quarter, powered by $18.2 billion in combined revenue from its wireline and wireless divisions. Verizon Wireless continued the trend of increasing the percentage of revenue it's contributing to the corporate parent's bottom line, providing $7.4 billion in revenue, or more than 40% of Verizon's total revenue for the quarter.

"This is the second quarter in a row of solid growth in earnings," said Doreen Toben, executive vice president and chief financial officer of Verizon. "Growth was driven once again by Verizon Wireless."

The quarterly wireless revenue posting represented a 20% increase of wireless revenue for the first quarter of 2004. The wireless operation also reported record-low churn of 1.33% for the quarter and net new customer additions of 1.64 million. Wireless data services contributed about $416 million during the quarter.

In the wireline business, data revenues were up 11.6% and 385,000 new DSL customers were added, while long-distance revenue increased 8.3%.