HBO Max stars with fibre, wireless in AT&T first quarter..

[sanjay kumar]

After deciding to refocus its business on three fronts – direct-to-consumer, wireless and broadband – US comms giant AT&T has shown success in each of them during the first quarter of its financial year.
HBOMax 28May2020
Overall for the three month period ended 31 March 2021, the telco posted consolidated revenues of $43.9 billion, up 2.7% compared with the same quarter a year ago. Drivers for the increase were higher Mobility revenues, primarily from equipment sales, and higher WarnerMedia revenues. These offset declines in domestic video, business wireline and Latin America, which includes foreign exchange pressure.

The company’s WarnerMedia division had a solid quarter with the standout performer being the HBO Max direct-to-consumer service. There were 2.7 million total domestic HBO Max and HBO subscriber net additions in the quarter now leading to a total of 44.2 million US domestic subscribers and nearly 64 million globally since the service was launched in May 2020. US HBO Max and HBO subscribers increased more than 11 million year-on-year, driven by HBO Max retail subscriber growth.

For the WarnerMedia business line as a whole, revenues for the first quarter of 2021 were $8.5 billion, up 9.8% compared with the year-ago quarter, driven by higher subscription, advertising and content revenues, reflecting said AT&T the partial recovery from prior-year impacts of Covid-19 and lower other revenues.

Subscription revenues were $3.8 billion, up 12.6% reflecting growth of direct-to-consumer US HBO Max and HBO subscribers, and the May 2020 acquisition of the remaining interest in HBO Latin America Group. Advertising revenues were $1.8 billion, up 18.5% annually resulting from the return of the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Championship Tournament in 2021. Content revenues were $3.4 billion, up 3.5% due to higher sales to HBO Max for theatrical product and higher Basic Networks licensing, partly offset by lower television product licensing from prior-year licensing to HBO Max. US HBO Max and HBO average revenue per user was $11.72.

Commenting on the first quarter 2021results, John Stankey, AT&T CEO said: “We continued to excel in growing customer relationships in our market focus areas of mobility, fibre and HBO Max. We had another strong quarter of post-paid phone net adds, higher gross adds, lower churn and good growth in Mobility EBITDA. We also continue to increase penetration in markets where we offer fibre broadband and we’re moving quickly to deploy more fibre. HBO Max continued to deliver strong subscriber and revenue growth in advance of our international and AVOD launches planned for June...