AT&T’s CEO Randall Stephenson stated on the company’s earnings call this week, that he is optimistic about the tax reform that newly elected, President Trump is suggesting. He went as far as to say that if this tax reform goes well and passes, you could see a whole lot more investing happening. And not just from AT&T but also from other companies. Tax reform has been a big topic for Trump in his early days in office, largely because he wants companies to invest more in the US. By opening more jobs, bringing factories back to the US and such. By lowering taxes on businesses, this allows them to do just that, and possibly bring the nearly $2 trillion in money that are overseas, back into the US.
2016 was a “transformational year” for AT&T, according to Stephenson. The company reported their earnings earlier this week, and largely met analysts expectations. Total wireless revenue was around $18.8 billion, while they did lose about 67,000 postpaid net phone customers in the quarter. That’s actually a big improvement over the 268,000 it lost in the same quarter a year earlier. Capex was about $22 billion during the quarter. So the company did somewhat well for the fourth quarter, but of course they have bene focusing on things outside of wireless and smartphones, with launching their DIRECTV NOW service in the fourth quarter. A service that appears to be growing at a pretty steady rate, although no official numbers have been given.
Seeing more companies investing at a higher level is a great thing, not just for the company themselves, but for the economy as well. With more investing typically comes more jobs. And that’s something that the President is really pushing for in his early days in office. AT&T already is responsible for a pretty large work force, and adding more jobs is definitely not a bad thing. It’ll be interesting to see where AT&T invests next. Seeing as they are currently looking to pick up Time Warner – potentially to add more content and expertise to their newly launched DIRECTV NOW service, and give users more value for their money.