AT&T reported strong Q2 2026 results with record fiber net adds and margin expansion, while maintaining full-year guidance. Management emphasized growth in converged customers, successful integration of Lumen’s fiber assets, and a partnership with AST SpaceMobile for satellite coverage. The tone was confident, and share buybacks were increased to $10 billion. Gained over 1 million advanced connectivity subscribers, best ever Q2 for fiber net adds.
AT&T reported strong Q2 2026 results with record fiber net adds and margin expansion, while maintaining full-year guidance. Management emphasized growth in converged customers, successful integration of Lumen’s fiber assets, and a partnership with AST SpaceMobile for satellite coverage. The tone was confident, and share buybacks were increased to $10 billion. Gained over 1 million advanced connectivity subscribers, best ever Q2 for fiber net adds.
Management's tone was upbeat, driven by record fiber and fixed wireless net additions, accelerated financial growth, and increased share repurchase target, with no notable shift in confidence.
Gained more than 1M advanced connectivity subscribers. Management's tone was upbeat, driven by record fiber and fixed wireless net additions, accelerated financial growth, and increased share repurchase target, with no notable shift in confidence.
Gained more than 1M advanced connectivity subscribers. Management's tone was upbeat, driven by record fiber and fixed wireless net additions, accelerated financial growth, and increased share repurchase target, with no notable shift in confidence.
Reiterated full-year guidance: EPS $2.25-$2.35, FCF $18bn+, capex $23-24bn.
The rise of agentic AI is fundamentally reshaping network traffic, and AT&T expects AI-driven workloads to drive massive traffic growth. Management believes AT&T is the only provider investing at scale to support future AI connectivity demands.
Gained more than 1M advanced connectivity subscribers. Management's tone was upbeat, driven by record fiber and fixed wireless net additions, accelerated financial growth, and increased share repurchase target, with no notable shift in confidence.
Capital investment increased to $6.1 billion in Q2, with full-year guidance of $23-$24 billion, driven by accelerated fiber deployment. Management expects capital investment to be more radical in the second half of the year.
Management's tone was upbeat, driven by record fiber and fixed wireless net additions, accelerated financial growth, and increased share repurchase target, with no notable shift in confidence.
“And for those limited circumstances, when the AT&T network is not available to one of our converged customers, we expect to be in a position to solve many of these corner cases as we move into 2027.”
“if they walk off the network, we're going to provide them a seamless transition into coverage via satellite on the directed device basis.”
| Metric | Period | Range | Midpoint | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Capex | FY2026 | $23B–$24B | $23.5B | MAINTAINED |
| EPS | FY2026 | $2.25–$2.35 | $2.30 | MAINTAINED |
| Free cash flow | FY2026 | $18B | $18B | MAINTAINED |
| Issued | Metric | Target | Guide | Actual | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FY2026 Q1 | Free cash flow | FY2026 Q2 | $4B–$4.5B | $5.17B | Met / beat |
| FY2025 Q3 | Capex | FY2025 Q4 | $7B–$7.5B | $6.781B | Missed |
| FY2025 Q3 | EPS | FY2025 | $1.97–$2.07 | $2.12 | Met / beat |
| FY2025 Q3 | Free cash flow | FY2025 Q4 | $4B | $4.539B | Met / beat |
AT&T expects to offer seamless satellite coverage via AST SpaceMobile by 2027, solving the final 2% of network gaps where customers leave terrestrial coverage. — This gives AST SpaceMobile a major commercial validation and revenue stream, while AT&T gains a unique converged product that competitors may struggle to match.
“the product that we've been working on with the AST offering will be a very intuitive product that doesn't require the customer to do anything differently”
Thank you guys so much for taking the questions. So two for you, John. Just first, in the prepared remarks, you said that you were going to solve for corner cases into 2027 in the fiber to the home business. I was interested to know if that meant that M&A is potentially in your future. And then the second is your take on what, you know, Brendan Carr's announcement was that the upper C band, you know, will be basically undeployable even though it's going to be auctioned in 2027 until 2031. How does that affect your thinking about how you deploy capital in the coming years? Thank you.
… for that. The comment was, maybe I wasn't clear enough, but I said, if you think about what we do today for a converged customer, we handle 98 plus percent of the traffic they need to get on and off the internet once we have a converged customer through mobile and our fixed services. and occasionally they walk off the network. They get in their boat and they maybe go out beyond the coast or they go to a national park where we don't have coverage. And so what I talked about handling the corner cases, it's those moments where they walk off the network. It's the 2%. It's what something like satellite constellation would be good for. And so the work that we're doing through combination of the JV and all the technical work we've been doing up to this point in time For example, with one of the partners we're working with, AST Space Mobile, those are all going to come to fruition as we move into next year. And it's going to be a, the product that we've been working on with the AST offering will be a very intuitive product that doesn't require the customer to do anything differently. They have their device and it behaves and operates just like it does today as they're moving around. But if they walk off the network, they're not going to walk off the network. We're going to provide them a seamless transition into coverage via satellite on the directed device basis. And so those are the corner cases I was alluding to that by the time we get into next year, you know, we will have solved for that other 2% and we will be in the market doing what customers want, which is providing them the assurance that they can buy from one provider and always be on the internet. And in that respect, we will be first in the market with that. We will be the best in the foundation of what we provide in fixed broadband. And that's a Really strong position to be in, and it's what others have to come and beat, and I think it's going to be unbeatable. Relative to the announcement on what Commissioner Carr has said about the C-band auction is that it is a long time out. I think we expected it was going to be a long time out from a planning perspective. Certainly we've worked aggressively on the public policy front to try to get auctions back up and moving. And to this administration's credit, they stepped up and have started to get that pipeline going again. But after four years of …
AT&T expects higher device prices from Apple, which may suppress upgrade demand, potentially reducing churn and device subsidy costs for carriers.
“I would expect that device costs are going up. I mean, I don't think it's a mystery to anybody. Apple's certainly indicated that that's a direction they're going.”
AT&T's integration of Lumen's fiber assets is progressing well, driving converged customer growth and improved penetration.
“We also continued to grow our base of converged customers. At the end of the second quarter, 42.5% of our advanced home internet customers also have a postpaid wireless account with AT&T. This convergence rate reached 45% when excluding”
… of our strategy. And that's exactly what we delivered in the second quarter. We gained more than 1 million advanced connectivity subscribers from fiber, fixed wireless and postpaid phones. With all three product categories posting higher net additions year over year. This was our best ever second quarter for AT&T fiber net ads and a record quarter for combined fiber and fixed wireless net ads. We also continued to grow our base of converged customers. At the end of the second quarter, 42.5% of our advanced home internet customers also have a postpaid wireless account with AT&T. This convergence rate reached 45% when excluding customers within our acquired footprint from Lumen. These are high lifetime value subscribers and our strong customer growth is a key driver of our accelerated financial growth during the second quarter. At a consolidated level, we reported faster year-over-year growth in service revenue, adjusted EBITDA, and adjusted EPS compared to our growth in the first quarter. We also achieved our highest consolidated adjusted EBITDA margin since we refocused our business on advanced connectivity at the beginning of this decade. This was driven by our improved …
AT&T is acquiring EchoStar's spectrum licenses to strengthen its low-band position, with the deal closing shortly.
“We are well positioned to fund the transaction, which we expect to close by the end of July.”
… buybacks through 2028. Together, our planned share repurchases and expected dividend payments will total approximately $18 billion this year, which is essentially 100% of our outlook for free cash flow. Our cash flow and liquidity provides us with flexibility to sustain our dividend and accelerate our planned buybacks, while also maintaining our commitment to reduce balance sheet leverage following our planned acquisition of Spectrum licenses from EchoStar. We are well positioned to fund the transaction, which we expect to close by the end of July. We ended the second quarter with net debt to adjusted EBITDA of 2.68 times, which was essentially flat with the first quarter. We continue to expect that our net leverage ratio will increase following the close of our transaction with Echo Star to the 3.2 times range and then return to a level consistent with our target in the 2.5 times range within approximately three years following the close of the Echo Star transaction. I'm really pleased with how we have the company position heading into the back half of the year. We have great operating momentum, a leading position in fiber and converged connectivity, and a team that's …