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Let's talk about Verizon. A strong fourth quarter is powering Verizon right now. Shares hired to the tune about nine tenths of a percent. The company reported numbers this morning that beat analyssessments. Also saw strong gains in new mobile phone and broadband customers. Let's break it all down the quarter that was and the future with Hans Bessberg. He is Verizon chairman and CEO joining us now, Hans, great
to have you with us. Let's go to subscribers, because you reported a net gain of five hundred and sixty eight thousand monthly phone subscribers. The expectation had been for below five hundred thousand. So from where you're sitting, where do you think that those gains are coming from?
So I think, first of all, we have a great deal, Frank. We had a very strong coarctor both financially and operationally. We added actually one million new postped customer customers on on broadband and why as together and as you right for it said on the wireless side of five hundred and sixty eight thousand, very strong quarter. We have great
offerings in the market. We have the best network that is supporting that, and we have gradually improved now we're five six quarter sequentially improvement both operational and financially, So we not only had a great operational quarter, but they also continue to expand our margins and our cash flow for the full year was nineteen point eight billion dollars, So very strong financials with the really solid growth on customers as well. So I think the products resonate with
the market today more than ever. I mean, you cannot work live play without mobility and broadband, and I think we are meeting that as the largest carrier in the country.
You know, in addition to earnings, you also announced a new AI initiative as well. And how do you feel about the customers that you're bringing on when it comes to AI connect, because is this something that you believe will be a significant growth.
Yeah, definitely think about this. I mean, today the majority of the NAI is large language models being developed in enumerous large data centers. When that's going to be applications for enterprises to use, they're going to go further out in the network, both for the transport cost, for privacy, security, latency. We have those assets were compute storage. We're cooling, we
have power. We already have that in our system that we can host, and we already now have customers like Google Meta that is using our network for their AI work, you know. So this is just the start of it, and the second phase is going to be way out in the network and then Verizon, which have fiber across the whole concrete, have also space and cooling and as well as power. We have a lot of power that we can resell as well. So all that is creating a new business for us on existing assets that we
don't need to develop, they're already there. It's a great opportunity with a big announcements of Yenai and data cents in the country, and US is the leader here and will be the winner on GENAI. I think we're a great position to be part of that. Well.
Hans Corporates vand is the theme of the morning of course, with that big announcement from Meadow. When it comes to this opportunity that you see in Ai and you're ambition to be the leader when it comes to gen Ai, how much are you willing to devote of Capex to that goal?
So, as I said, the majority of what we have we already have done it, deployed one or one fiber strategy, so we have fiber going around across the countrete, close to data centers, close to all the enterprises. We already have space, we have capacity or power that we can reuse. So much what we have is already invested. So we think about the second part of JNAI when the large language models are already developed and you need to be closer to the user, the company, the enterprise, or whatever
it might be, and there were well positioned. We already have revenues from it today. We had in the fourth quarter. Even though we're small, we're now ramping that up and that's why we were announced today AI Connect, which is our product and solution for this.
I'm also just curious about regular way Internet because if you look at the Internet subscribers that you brought on the rise or it was a decline from a year ago, but it was more than what analysts expected, and so what does that mean about the prospects of the people you are bringing on and what it means for the upcoming quarters.
So I think that our broadband strategy that we laid out in the third quarter is really resonating with the market. We have two great products, where the fiber products called files, which is the I would say the highest quality fiber product in the market. We have great success with that. We added fifty thousand new customers in the quarker. Then we have fixed wiles Access, which is a totally different model where your self installed, you have great performance, high
customer satisfaction. We add the more than three hundred, three hundred seventy thousand of those in the quarter. So all that product is going into next year and or twenty five. We're already next year to fortify that. And then we have our pending acquisition or Frontier that is adding even more fiber customers. So our broadband strategy is clear. We're taking share at the moment, and we think we can continue to do that into twenty five.
Let's talk about the share price a little bit, because I'm taking a look over the past five years and I see Forizon shares down about thirteen percent on a total return basis. Hopefully we'll have that chart up and I want to ask CONTs, I mean, what do you think that investors are missing when it comes to your story and why are we seeing this sort of sideways chop when it comes to your shares.
I think if you look at share price, I mean it's always a lot of different combinations. I think we of course invested heavily in the five E and the Spectrum, and or we took on a lot of debt during the Spectrum acquisitions in twenty nineteen. Now we're working that down. We're almost down to our death leverage of two point twenty five on debt too beta, so we are actually
paying that down. So I think that our capital location has been heavy to build a network and now getting leverage on that, and that's what you see, and that's I hope our shareholders will see that that growth factory can continue and we get leverage on it. Secondly, we
are on the eighteenth year of increasing our dividend. I mean there are not many companies are doing that and are of course our yield is high today given that the share price is a little bit subdue, but I think that's what our shareholders should see and the prospect of shareholders both that the dividend has been super stable and growing and then now we're also continue to grow both operationally and financially. So I have high ambitions here and I hope that every stakeholder going to see that.
Certainly, the deat load was something investors were keeping an eye on, and as you have made a lot of progress in terms of reducing that load, I do still wonder you had come off an announcement of a massive acquisition. Do you see more potential acquisitions if you're able to tap the capital markets or find it otherwise? Wondering what your inclination here is to do more to expand your reach to mergers and acquisitions.
So our strateted is pretty simple. We build one network and we want as many profitable connections on top of it any type of the segments of the market. Today, we're are the number one on wireless. We have a nationwide so we already have it, so now it's just to continue to get leverage on on broadband. We just acquired or in the process acquiring Frontier, we have a great broad and offering. We're planning to address one hundred
million households with our broadband offering. So I think we're sitting really good with assets we have, and that's what I want to execute on. As a CEO, you can never say you're never going to do an acquisition. But clearly we have all the assets right now, and now we are in execution mood, and see that we leverage that.
All right, Hans really appreciate your time. That is Hans' best or of Horizon