Verizon reported the loss of 52,000 Fios TV customers in the second quarter, with the No. 1 U.S. wireless company actively looking to offload its video business to YouTube TV.
“We have continued our network-as-a-service concept, where we are now collaborating with YouTube TV to offer up not only our Fios customers, but also the wireless customers, as well.”
Since last year, Verizon has been actively promoting Google’s virtual pay TV service, YouTube TV, to both its Fios wireline and wireless customers, new 5G services included. This is, in many cases, at the expense of the legacy Fios TV linear TV service.
Fios TV’s loss of another 52,000 users compares to a loss of 38,000 in the second quarter of 2018. The service has 4.27 million remaining customers. And, of course, as it loses size and scale, leverage in program licensing further erodes … thus incentivizing Verizon to cede even more of its customers to YouTube TV.
“Again working on the motto where we outlined earlier this year, how we can partner with some of these content players instead of investing ourselves in it and seeing that we can bring your seamless service for our customer, but also making it very efficient for ourselves and for our customers,” Vestberg said.
As for Verizon’s broader wirelines business, Fios Internet added 28,000 subscribers during the second quarter vs. a loss of 10,000 users in the year-ago period.
The company reported 451,000 net additions on the wireless side vs. 199,000 in the second quarter of last year.
Overall, Verizon reported consolidated revenue of $32.1 billion in the second quarter, down 0.4% year-over-year and lower than analyst estimates of $32.4 billion.
