In worrying news fro AT&T, it has emerged that another 600,000 TV customers have left the company. As reported by Arstechnia, this all comes as the company scrambles to find another buyer for DirecTV.
AT&T has been relatively quiet in the month of October this year. Probably due to the need to find a new buyer for DirecTV. However, the company was very much in the news last month.
AT&T, alongside other carriers, launched a new verification tool called ZenKey. This has been in the works for a few years now but finally getting rolled out.
The company also announced plans to subsidize wireless smartphone plans in exchange for putting adverts on them. This means you can get a phone plane at a discount if you are willing to put up with the adverts.
This loss of customers for DirecTV continues a trend of the division losing AT&T TV users. AT&T appears desperate to sell it but the continued loss of customers will not make it into much of an appealing prospect for most.
AT&T continues to lose DirecTV customers
The exact number of customers AT&T lost in Q3 was 627,000. This is actually a slight improvement on previous quarters this year. It is also the best performance since Q1 2019 which gives you an indication of just how bad things are going for the company.
AT&T has reported that of this number 590,000 are “Premium TV” customers, a category that includes DirecTV satellite, U-verse wireline TV, and the online service known as AT&T TV. This means they lost 37,000 AT&T TV Now customers, the streaming service formerly known as DirecTV Now.
It is now almost getting to the point where AT&T is running out of customers to lose. This means that this slight improvement in recent quarters is more likely a reflection of a smaller customer base rather than anything else.
To illustrate this it emerged that AT&T TV Now has just 683,000 subscribers compared to 1.86 million two years ago.
AT&T continues to look for DirecTV buyer
These massive customer losses have meant AT&T continues to look desperately for a buyer for DirecTV. The company first purchased the brand for $49 billion in 2015 but now wants out.
The value of the brand will likely have dropped significantly with some reports suggesting AT&T is willing to sell at around $15.75 billion. There have been seldom few updates on this subject in the past few months, perhaps indicating there is little interest in acquiring the company.
AT&T explained the loss of customers to a “lower churn and [a] higher quality base”. This means those customers that remain are paying more than those that left to offset the loss.
Still, things look pretty bleak for AT&T’s TV division. The company will hope to be able to get rid of DirecTV soon to save themselves the embarrassment as much as anything else