The second-largest U.S. mobile service provider
AT&T Inc
. (
T
) has inked a deal with
Viacom Inc.
(
VIA
) to add several Viacom channels to its U-verse TV online
offerings.
With the AT&T U-verse ID, AT&T customers will now get to
view the full-length episodes from BET, Comedy Central, MTV,
Nickelodeon, Spike and VH1 on demand through Viacom's network-based
websites like www.mtv.tve. Also, customers will soon get the access
to these services on their mobile devices including smartphones and
tablets.
This is the first "TV Everywhere" offering from AT&T and
Viacom. AT&T's U-verse service offerings are a huge success and
gaining strong momentum in the market. Healthy growth from its
U-verse video (U-verse TV and bundled satellite) services is
helping AT&T to counter increasing competition in the business
from its major rivals -
Verizon Communications Inc.
(
VZ
) and
Sprint Nextel Corp.
(
S
). The U-verse services coupled with support from business revenue,
in particular strategic services, are driving the growth in the
wireline business.
Revenue from residential customers edged up 1.7% year over year
(maximum growth in more than four years) to $5.5 billion in the
second quarter, driven by AT&T U-verse services. AT&T's
total video subscribers, which include U-verse TV and bundled
satellite customers, touched 5.8 million at the end of the second
quarter. Total U-verse TV subscribers reached 4.1 million with the
net addition of 155,000 customers on continued high-speed Internet
attach rates. Strategic business services such as Ethernet, Virtual
Private Networks, hosting, IP conferencing and application
services, spiked 13.5% year over year.
We believe the expansion of U-verse services will continue to boost
data revenue and ARPU (average monthly revenue per user) in the
wireline segment.
We are maintaining our long-term Neutral recommendation on
AT&T. The company retains the Zacks # 3 (Hold) Rank for the
short term (1-3 months).
SPRINT NEXTEL (S): Free Stock Analysis Report
AT&T INC (T): Free Stock Analysis Report
VIACOM INC-A (VIA): Free Stock Analysis Report
VERIZON COMM (VZ): Free Stock Analysis Report
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