On Verizon’s and Tier One revenue…concerns beyond the economy

Verizon wasn’t able to match analyst estimates for growth in Q1, but the company’s wireless unit increased revenues by 12%, even while subscriber growth slowed and losses increased slightly.

In the wireline area, Verizon continued to lose both business and residential fixed lines to mobile, to cable and (relatively few) to VoIP. FiOS reported strong numbers and good growth, but there are concerns that even this most successful of the telco TV offerings may not grow fast enough to generate the revenue and profits to offset wireline declines.

Verizon has been bringing out VoIP and femtocell add-ons, as other reports on this blog show, and we believe the company is preparing to make a more elaborate VoIP and FMC offering available. Its Voicewing product apparently has been withdrawn.

While revenues for Verizon and other Tier One providers are up, which would not put direct pressure on capex, we believe service providers, including Verizon, are very concerned about the declining voice margins, declining mobile growth, and the failure of their monetization strategies so far. These factors will have far more influence on spending in 2009 and beyond than the economic problems.