AT&T Inc (T) 2013 Q1 法說會逐字稿

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to the AT&T first-quarter earnings release 2013 conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session and instructions will be given at that time. (Operator Instructions). Also, as a reminder, this teleconference is being recorded.

At this time, I will turn the conference call over to your host, Ms. Susan Johnson. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Tony. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to our first-quarter conference call. It is great to have you with us today. I am Susan Johnson, Head of Investor Relations for AT&T. Joining me on the call today is John Stephens, AT&T's Chief Financial Officer.

John will provide an update with perspectives on the quarter; then we will follow up with questions. Let me remind you our earnings material is available on the Investor Relations page of the AT&T website. That is www.ATT.com\investor.relations.

I also need to cover our Safe Harbor statement, which is on slide 2. This presentation and comments may include forward-looking statements that are subject to risks. Results may differ materially. Details are on our SEC filings and on AT&T's website.

Now, before I turn the call over to John, let me quickly cover our consolidated financial summary, which is on slide 3. Reported EPS for the quarter was $0.67. That is up more than 11% over last year's first quarter. Our results this quarter include about a $0.03 help from an income tax settlement. When you exclude this, earnings per share were $0.64, or about an 8.5% increase over last year's adjusted first-quarter EPS of $0.59, which is adjusted to exclude our divested Ad Solutions unit.

Consolidated revenues excluding Ad Solutions were up 0.9% year over year, thanks to solid revenue growth in Wireless, continued gains in U-verse Services and growth in Strategic Business Services. Revenues were impacted somewhat by lower regulatory fees this quarter. When you normalize for the difference in these charges, consolidated revenue would have grown 1.3%.

Consolidated margins were down slightly year over year, primarily due to Wireline pressure. Cash flows started the year strong. Cash from operating activities for the quarter totaled $8.2 billion and free cash flow was $3.9 billion. And we continued buying back shares as part of our repurchase program. In the first quarter, we bought back 168 million shares for $5.9 billion.

With that overview, I will now turn the call over to AT&T's Chief Financial Officer, John Stephens. John?

Thank you, Susan, and good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for being with us today and, as always, thank you for your interest in AT&T.

Before we get to the detailed results, let's start with a quick overview. Highlights are on slide 4. First, we had a solid start to the year. Earnings per share growth was strong. Adjusted consolidated revenues increased, and cash flow continues to be a success story for us.

We added more than 2 million IP broadband connections in the quarter, when you combine both Wireless and Wireline connections. In Wireless, it is all about the mobile Internet. Data growth was strong. Smartphone sales set another first-quarter record. Tablets drove postpaid growth with an exceptional quarter. And customers continue to flock to our mobile share plans, making it easier than ever to add new devices and drive further growth. This resulted in improved revenues, better margins, postpaid ARPU growth and lower churn.

In Wireline, U-verse continues to shine. We had our best-ever U-verse high-speed Internet sales in the first quarter. This drove positive broadband growth. In fact, we had our best total Wireline broadband growth in nine quarters.

U-verse video sales also were strong, as we added more subscribers than we have in any quarter over the last two years. So the team is executing at a high level and we have the right strategy. Our financial results are solid, our capital structure sound. All in all, a solid start to the new year.

Before we move to operational results, I would like to give you a quick update on Project Velocity or Project VIP. Details are on the slide 5. It is still early, but we already have made tremendous progress with our LTE deployment. We are running ahead of schedule, with nearly 200 million LTE POPs covered to date. And we expect to complete nearly 90% of our 300 million POP LTE buildout by the end of this year.

The LTE network also is operating at high levels. First, our LTE network is the fastest in the nation, as supported by an independent third-party testing group. Then on Wireless network performance, including call, text, and data, RootMetrics ranked AT&T number one or tied for number one in 14 of the 23 markets they have surveyed so far this year. And this comes on top of ranking first or tied for first in more than 70% of the markets RootMetrics surveyed in the second half of last year where we had deployed LTE.

Our U-verse VIP deployments will begin rolling out later this year. But the incredible first quarter U-verse results add to our confidence in making this a larger part of our growth strategy.

We had record-high speed IP broadband net adds, along with increasing U-verse video gains. We continue to gain market share in areas where we offer U-verse and Project VIP expands those areas even more.

The same holds true with our Strategic Business Service revenue growth and our fiber build to business. Even in uncertain economic times, we are seeing growing demand for high-speed connectivity and our advanced data services. These results once again show that Project VIP is working and the right strategy for AT&T.

Now, let's move to our operational results, starting with Wireless, where we had another solid quarter thanks to continued growth of the mobile Internet. Revenue and ARPU are on slide 6.

Mobile data continues to surge. Revenues were up 21% in the quarter. That helped drive 3.4% service revenue growth. And total Wireless revenues were up 3.4%.

You will recall that we adjusted the way we book our data revenues, which no longer include text messaging. And as you can see this quarter, mobile data continues to surge. It is now a $20 billion annualized revenue stream, growing at 21%.

You also can see the impact of data growth when you look at postpaid ARPU. Data ARPU grew 18% and total postpaid phone-only ARPU was up 2%. Total postpaid ARPU, which includes high-margin but lower ARPU tablets and other non-phone devices, also grew in the quarter, up about 1%.

Our postpaid smartphone base also continues to expand. Those details are on slide 7. Smartphone subscribers increased by more than 1.2 million in the quarter and by more than 7 million in the last 12 months. Overall, smartphones now make up more than 70% of our postpaid phone base, and smartphones accounted for nearly 90% of postpaid sales in the quarter, giving us even more room for smartphone growth.

These are the premium subscribers in our business. They have twice the ARPU of non-smartphone subscribers and much lower churn. So their conversion brings additional revenue.

Another new first-quarter smartphone sales record of 6 million helped drive that growth. We had 4.8 million iPhone activations in the quarter, while our upgrade rate was steady when compared to the last year's levels.

The number of postpaid subscribers on usage-based data plans also continues to grow. Overall, almost 70% of our smartphone base has moved to usage-based plans. Mobile share plans continue to be popular. By the end of the first quarter, mobile share accounts reached 3.3 million. These accounts include about 10 million subscribers or devices, such as smartphones and tablets.

This growth is even more impressive when you remember that we give customers a choice when picking a data plan, allowing them to pick the one that works best for them.

At the same time, take rates on the higher mobile share data plans, those that are 10 gigabits or higher, continue to run above expectations, with more than a quarter of mobile share accounts on those plans. And we continue to see a steady movement of subscribers on unlimited plans taking advantage of mobile share. More than 15% of subscribers have moved over from unlimited plans, or about 1 million subscribers to date.

During the quarter, we introduced larger mobile share plans targeting businesses, as well as consumers who need more data. These plans offer up to 50 gigabits per month and provide an attractive revenue yield.

We also see the impact of the mobile Internet on our postpaid net adds. Details are on slide eight. We had strong gains in tablets. This new growth area drove postpaid growth of almost 300,000 postpaid subscribers in the quarter. We also had another solid quarter with our connected devices, adding 431,000 subscribers, primarily with security and tracking devices.

Reseller and prepaid impacted our overall net adds. Reseller had a net loss this quarter, primarily due to resellers rationalizing their no- or low-usage accounts. These disconnects had a negative impact of more than 600,000 on reseller subscriber net adds in the quarter and on total subscriber net adds in the quarter. Although the reseller volumes involved were significant, it had little impact on revenue. In fact, our reseller revenue is up more than 50% year over year.

Prepaid sales continue to be impacted by declines in session-based tablets.

We do see some changes across the mobile marketplace. As always, we continue to evaluate and look for opportunities that take advantage of our network, including new product offerings, funneling opportunities and alternative forms of distribution.

But we also continue to see improvements in churn. Postpaid churn had another strong quarter, down year over year and sequentially. And we had our best-ever first-quarter smartphone churn, which was less than 1%.

We did have a policy change with regard to third-party retailers that had a small impact on churn, but with or without that change, we saw a reduction in churn and we continue to see year-over-year improvements in postpaid churn.

Now let's take a look at Wireless margins on slide 9. Our Wireless margin story continues a trend we have seen in recent quarters. Smartphone sales continue to be strong, but even with increased sales, margins are expanding. The story is no different this quarter. We set a first-quarter record of 6 million smartphone sales; yet our wireless EBITDA service margin was 90 basis points higher when compared to the first quarter of 2012, or 43.2%. Smartphone subscribers continue to be a wise investment. You know the long-term value they bring -- higher ARPU, lower churn, strong data growth, driving growth in operating income, which was up more than 4% year over year. We really feel good about our Wireless position. Revenues continue to grow with expanding margins. The mobile Internet continues to bring strong data growth, with more and more subscribers on usage-based data plans.

Customers continue to embrace our mobile share plans, helping drive tablet growth. And our LTE deployment is ahead of schedule and winning praise as the fastest in the industry. So all in all, a really solid Wireless performance that sets the stage for a strong year in 2013 and beyond.

Now let's look at our Wireline operations, starting with Consumer, which you can see on slide 10. Once again, we had another impressive U-verse performance with accelerating subscriber gains. The growth of our high-speed IP broadband has been nothing short of dramatic. We added more IP broadband subscribers this quarter than ever before, more than 730,000, which helped drive our best total broadband net adds in two years. IP broadband now makes up more than half of our total broadband base, with an ARPU growing at more than 9% year over year. Plus, we are gaining share against our competition.

U-verse TV also had a great quarter. We added 232,000 U-verse video customers, our best showing in nine quarters. These gains helped drive overall consumer revenue growth of 2%. Adjusted for changes in regulatory fees, it would have been nearly 2.5%, with U-verse revenues up more than 30% in the quarter off an ever-increasing base.

So once again, another solid quarter in Consumer, and we see more opportunity for growth with our increasing U-verse penetration and planned Project VIP expansions.

Now let's move to Wireline business, which you can see on slide 11. When you look at the three major components of Wireline business, you are seeing a similar story that we have talked about in prior quarters. The continued drop in small business starts is still pressuring that part of the revenue stream. Wholesale and government solutions continue to be challenged, and our Enterprise revenues, after showing some positive signs last year, were challenged in the first quarter. Combined, Business revenue was down sequentially and year over year, pressured somewhat by regulatory fees. Adjusting for those fees, total Business revenue was down 2.7%.

One bright spot was the strong growth in Strategic Business Services. Those are products that are part of our Project Velocity investments, including VPN, Ethernet, hosting and other advanced IP services. These were up 10.8%, even in a very difficult economic environment.

Expenses were down year over year to help offset some of the revenue decline, but uncertainty with the economy continues to be the issue. Customers are delaying buying decisions. Unemployment improvement continues to lag. The business overhang from regulatory uncertainty persists. And government budget issues are all having an impact on our customers and on our results.

But the most challenging aspect for us is trying to forecast the future in this environment. Like others, we are looking for consistent signs of improvement.

One thing that is not faltering in our confidence in the future is that it will be driven by high-bandwidth connectivity, mobility and the cloud. Nobody is positioned better to take advantage of these opportunities once the uncertainty passes and the economy turns. Let me give you more detail on slide 12.

AT&T is a recognized leader in solutions for hosting and cloud services. We offer network-centric, integrated solutions that provide value to customers on a global basis. The foundation for our cloud services is having one of the world's most powerful and advanced global MPLS networks that spans 187 countries. We operate 38 data centers that are fully integrated with that network, providing top-of-the-line security, reliability and management.

We see a future where our Wireline network assets and mobility come together in the cloud that will mobilize workforces to access business information in a secure environment. AT&T's expertise in this area has been recognized recently by industry analyst Gartner, who gave the Company the highest rating for important capabilities for network services. We have the network, the right tools and the right products to win in the fast-developing cloud market, and we are best positioned to take advantage of the growing opportunities in this space.

Now, let's look at margins and cash flow. Consolidated margin comparisons are on slide 13. For the first quarter, consolidated margin was 18.9%, down slightly from the year-ago first quarter. Wireless margin expansion offset Wireline pressure; however, expenses from corporate and new business initiatives did impact overall margins.

In Wireline, pressure from Business as well as success-based expenses in Consumer drove operating margins down slightly. Helping offset this pressure were growth in Consumer revenues, operational improvements and solid execution of our One AT&T cost initiatives. We continue to expect consolidated margins to be stable this year, with growth in Wireless offset by pressure at our investments in our Wireline business.

Now, let's move to cash flow, which continues to be a very good story for us. Our summary is on slide 14. In the first quarter, cash from operations totaled $8.2 billion. Capital expenditures were $4.3 billion, with more than half of that invested in the Wireless business, which gives us free cash flow before dividends of $3.9 billion, more than $300 million improvement over last year's first quarter.

Our CapEx expectations continue to be in the $21 billion range as we ramp Project VIP throughout this year. However, we are adjusting our longer-term capital spending expectations. We now expect capital spending to be in the $20 billion range for both 2014 and 2015. That is down from the $22 billion level we expected when we announced Project VIP last November.

This reduction brings no slowdown in our Project VIP deployment. As we have refined our VIP planning, we are seeing greater integration efficiencies in our spending curves. Our LTE build is accelerating into this year's spending. That, along with additional savings in non-Project VIP spending, gives us confidence to revise our expectations without changing our overall build targets.

Post Project VIP, we expect capital spending to take a step down to more normal levels.

Moving to dividends, payments for the quarter totaled $2.5 billion and we repurchased 168 million shares for $5.9 billion. This makes our total return to shareholders in the first quarter more than $8 billion and more than $30 billion in the last five quarters. Plus, as we announced last month, the AT&T Board approved an additional $300 million repurchase authorization. The Company expects to make future repurchase decisions opportunistically, which will likely slow the pace of buybacks compared to recent activity.

In terms of uses of cash, total debt was up in the first quarter as we took advantage of historic low interest rates with a debt-to-capital ratio of about 46%, and a net-debt-to-EBITDA ratio of 1.68, well within our guidance in the 1.8 range or lower.

We also continue working with the Department of Labor on a plan that would contribute a preferred interest in our AT&T Mobility to fund our pension plans. We continue to be optimistic on the strategy and expect approval of this proposal in 2013.

So all in all, another solid financial performance. Our balance sheet is sound, our debt metrics solid and our strong cash flow gives us the flexibility to invest in growth initiatives while returning value to shareholders.

Now, before we take questions, let me close with a quick recap on slide 15. We are off to a good start to the year, and what gives us a lot of confidence looking ahead is that we have built a very strong foundation for growth for 2013 and beyond.

Our spectrum position is solid. We are tracking ahead of schedule with our LTE deployment. Our 4G LTE network is the nation's fastest and winning quality awards across the country. Our capital spending is more effective and efficient than we originally expected.

The churn is down and ARPUs are up, and our smartphone and tablet gains continue to be very strong. The number of subscribers we have on usage-based plans is climbing fast. And on top of this, we had one of our best U-verse quarters ever, and that is before our Project VIP Wireline expansion really starts to ramp, which we expect will only make all of these things stronger as we move into the second half of 2013 and beyond.

So, we feel good about the foundation we have built. We feel good about the momentum we have. We are positioned to grow, even in this slow economy. And we are well-positioned to continue returning substantial value to shareholders.

With that, Susan, let's go ahead and take some questions.

Thank you, John. Tony, we will now open up the call for our question-and-answer session.

Thank you very much. (Operator Instructions). Michael Rollins, Citi Investment Research.

Thanks and good afternoon. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about the business revenue in more detail, in terms of implied erosion of legacy services relative to Strategic. Is that being hurt by the cyclical as well as the secular? And is that something that continues at this rate, or do you see some improvement coming over the next 12 to 24 months in that segment? Thanks.

So good afternoon, Mike. Real quickly, if you break down the three segments, so to speak, of our business revenues, into the small-business side, we are encouraged by the acceptance of high-speed broadband, U-verse type products. But the business is still challenged by a lack of starts.

We are seeing some positive improvement in our wholesale business, but in our government and education and medical are still being really challenged by the economy and by funding. And enterprise is continuing to be challenged by uncertainty and, if you will, delaying decisions, even though they are spending on speed and advanced data services.

When we look at the overall Business Services, Mike, I would think about it this way. It is hard to predict until we get some economic clarity. Because while unemployment or regulatory concerns or government spending may be affecting us, as an individual company separately, in different ways, it is definitely affecting our customers. And until we get some clarity on that, it is hard to predict.

But what we do feel good about is the position we are in when it turns, because we can provide that combination of integrated services like no other. Hopefully, that is -- I have answered your question, Mike.

Thanks, John.

Simon Flannery, Morgan Stanley.

Thank you very much. Good afternoon, John. You had very good U-verse numbers. Can you talk about what was driving that specifically? It doesn't sound like your footprint has expanded dramatically. That is going to be later on. Was it promotional activity? I see you have got a few new offers out there. And do you think that this is sort of a new kind of turning the corner as the DSL base becomes lower?

And then given your sort of leverage is moving up towards your 1.8, what is the latest thinking around potential for asset sales or other monetizations? Thanks.

Thank you, Simon. And quite frankly, on our U-verse positive developments, both in Small Business and in Consumer, I would tell you that the simple answer is really, really quality execution by our people and their teams. Certainly, there were some promotions, certainly there was good opportunities that presented itself from existing assets. But I will tell you, they focused on reducing churn, they focused on shortening installation times, they focused on converting customers from legacy DSL services to the high-speed U-verse services. It was really a whole collection of really quality execution by the team. So I think that is what really drove it.

As you can see, we still drove revenue growth and we still are getting very good revenues on our triple play on the Consumer side. So it wasn't just incentive-driven; it was really performance.

With regard to our balance sheet and our wherewithal, I guess the first item I would point out to you, Simon, with regard to your second question is, as we have shown, we have got a great balance sheet, very strong, strong cash flows, very great coverage of all of our responsibilities. So we feel good about where we are at.

Clearly aware of what is going on in the industry with regard to monetization strategies. We have a responsibility to look at all of those because we are here to monetize and maximize value for our shareholders. But with the strength of our balance sheet, we can be careful and prudent with regard to taking those steps and are not necessarily in a position where we need to do any of that.

Thank you.

Philip Cusick, JPMorgan.

Hey, guys, thanks. I am thinking about the revenue guidance that you have talked about in Wireless for mid single digits long-term. And I am struggling to figure out -- and it sort of goes into subscriber and ARPU side. As more of the subscribers come from tablets, and assuming Digital Life launches fairly soon -- and we would love an update there -- ARPU is slowing down, you did 3.5% revenue growth in Wireless this quarter. Can that be sustained given sort of where, one, the industry is going, and not growing by much; and two, coming to the other side of this smartphone growth? Or do we really need to prepare ourselves for sort of lower ARPU, lower revenue growth in Wireless going forward? Thanks.

Thanks, Phil. First and foremost, we still feel good about our guidance about mid-single-digits revenue growth in the Mobility business. I would suggest to you a couple of things.

One, we do still have room to grow on the smartphones; as we mentioned, sales rates are at 90%. Current customer base is at 70%. That gives us a lot of room to grow.

Secondly, we continue to see the adding of tablets and other data devices, so that is going well.

Third is as we continue to complete our LTE deployment, we will -- we expect we will continue to see growth in other services, like video and so forth. So that should provide us with future growth opportunities. And all of that is before we roll out things like Digital Life, the Connected Car, Mobile Premise Solution, and a lot of the other opportunities that we have moving forward.

So we still feel good about where we are at. We are opportunistic and pleased about where we are going, and think we will move forward with that.

You specifically asked the question about Digital Life. We are going to launch -- I think we have announced we are going to launch 15 markets by the middle of the year, in the spring of this year. And so I think you will be hearing more about that soon.

If I can just follow up for a quick second. It seems like the wireless industry this quarter, at least on a voice basis, is going to be fairly negative. And it looks like you are negative on your own in terms of voice. Is that an acceptable situation for AT&T? And can you continue to be sort of negative on voice over time, as competitors sort of lose fewer subscribers, or do you need to turn it up a little bit and try and be positive there?

I guess -- let me make one other point that maybe I should have made sooner, and that is -- if you look at what our churn has done and the fact that it has continuously gone down, we are really optimistic about growing revenues from that perspective. And as that happens, we will see impacts on our total revenue base.

But if you're asking are we going to continue to see some form of conversion of revenue from voice to data, that would not surprise us, but we are positioned well with usage-based plans to capture the revenue opportunity that that data provides. So I feel good -- still feel good about all of those opportunities. We just need to continue to execute and continue to move forward with our LTE build.

Thanks, John.

John Hodulik, UBS.

Thanks. John, maybe just a quick follow-up to Phil's question, really more focused on the ARPU. You saw some deceleration. If you look at some of the components, I think -- I believe phone-only ARPU went from 2.5% growth last quarter to 2% this quarter. And then the dilution from these other high-margin, low-ARPU devices almost doubled from 0.6% to 1.1%.

I guess first, what is driving the phone-only deceleration? Is that just -- you still have a lot of penetration to go, but maybe the incremental penetration from a smartphone standpoint is slowing. And really, if we put all these points together, I mean, should we continue to expect to see deceleration going forward? Or is it more of an alternative sub sort of story and less of an ARPU story?

And then one other thing. I mean, I don't know -- you guys broke out home phone customers last quarter. I am wondering if you guys are still giving out that number. Thanks.

John, a couple of things. One, ARPU is always impacted by quarterly fluctuations and the level of sales and so forth. But quite frankly, this quarter is impacted compared to prior quarters by the change in the regulatory rates. There was a 10% change in the regulatory fee rates that are charged that are included in our revenues. And so that, I think, explains a fair amount of the differentiation in some of the revenue growth. That is all it is.

So from that perspective, when you take that into consideration, still feel real good about where our ARPU is going and our phone-only ARPU.

So the regulatory fee did hit that phone-only ARPU number?

Yes, I mean, the USF rates went down from 17.9% to 16.1%, about a 10% reduction. So that is impacting all of our growth rate numbers. It is just part of the process.

Mike McCormack, Nomura Securities.

Hey, guys, thanks. John, can you just talk a little bit about, again, on the Wireline margin side; I know there is typically some first quarter seasonality to that. Are there pieces we should be thinking about? The Project VIP impact, I guess I was expecting more of a sort of 14 impact on success-based, so I am assuming that has been pulled forward. Maybe you can just give a little more detail around that.

And then lastly, any reaction to the upgrade policy change on wireless at Verizon?

So on Wireline margins, specifically with regard to U-verse, a couple of points, Mike. I think you are hitting on one. Our expansion of our footprint for U-verse services from Project Velocity is really a later this year and 2014 type event. The sales and success in customer adds on both video and IP broadband was really great execution in this first quarter. It wasn't expanded selling space. But with that, we still had success-based costs. And so we will take those for these long-term, valuable customers. So that is one aspect of it.

Two, I would expect that as we expand the footprint and get additional coverage that we get out of Velocity, you will continue to see some really solid numbers and some pressure from the success of sales. I just believe the first-quarter results are a real positive for going forward. So, you are right -- we always have some first-quarter pressure with regard to margins. That is not unusual. But it is in the comparison to last year also.

Third --

Is this a run rate we should be thinking about, John, as we progress through the next couple of quarters?

Yes, I would suggest it this way. We still think we are going to come in slightly below -- we won't change that guidance -- slightly below last year's margins amount. But we feel good about the efforts the team has gone through to manage the margins.

And if you think about the challenges we faced in the Business revenues, we are really performing well on cost management.

On your question with regard to some of the changes going into the marketplace, you know, absolutely, the marketplace is dynamic and it is changing, and we are looking at those changes and evaluating them and trying to stay current with all aspects of it. Don't have anything to announce today, but we are respectful of our competitors in this environment, but we are also pretty comfortable with the fact that we are going to be able to continue to compete at a very high level.

Great, thanks, John.

Jason Armstrong, Goldman Sachs.

Hey, great, thank you. John, maybe a couple of questions. First, on tablets, you obviously had a really good quarter. You had a partial subsidy model attached to that, and I am wondering, in thinking through that, is the subsidy maybe something you used just to stimulate demand temporarily and sort of place these devices in the base? Or is that more of a sort of recurring part of the model as we go forward?

And then second question, just on leverage. You know, the 1.8 turns, I think my understanding was to create room to invest in Project VIP and to go through a big capital cycle over the course of three years, and still leave room to buy back shares aggressively if you wanted to. You know, with reducing the capital spending targets here, but still leaving the leverage target out there at sort of the same ratio, does that signal an intention to continue to tap that capacity for additional share buybacks? I know you said buybacks are slowing from here, but it seems like you still have plenty of room if that is the case. Thanks.

Okay, great, Jason. Let me cover your second question first. With regard to the 1.8, it was a couple of things. Yes, it was a recognition of the fact that we are going to have some higher capital spend. And two, it was also a recognition of historically low interest rates.

If you look at our interest expense first quarter '12/first quarter '13, you will see that even though our debt levels have increased, our overall interest expense is down. And that is really what we were trying to take advantage of, is the fact that there is a lot of really inexpensive or attractively priced debt capital. And with a Company like ours, who has a very solid dividend, we are trying to be prudent in making the decisions about which capital to utilize.

With that being said, yes, the reduction in the Project VIP capital projection over the last two years will provide us additional flexibility, and that is very important to us.

With that being said, we are going to stick with what we guided in the presentation, and that is we are going to be opportunistic with the additional buyback. We would expect to finish the 600 million share authorization in the second quarter, and we will be opportunistic and potentially buy at a slower pace as we go forward.

The other question I think you had, Jason, was on tablets, and I would suggest to you that you have identified it right. We put that in place to see how it would work, to stimulate demand and to see what kind of not only take rates we get on the tablets, but also what kind of ARPUs we would get.

After our initial testing of that in the fourth quarter, we decided to stay with it, because we have found that the economics of it make a lot of sense. I won't suggest to you that it is a permanent offering, but I will suggest to you we will continue to monitor it and make our decisions as we go forward with regard to keeping it in place or adjusting it, just like we do with all our product offerings.

Thanks, John.

Colby Synesael, Cowen and Company.

Great, I have two questions. First, on the regulatory fees, both in Wireless and Wireline, I'm curious if those all began on January 1 or if it happened mid-quarter, and therefore there is more of an impact to be seen in the second quarter. And also how that relates back to your previous guidance of 2% or greater than 2% consolidated revenue growth.

And then my second question has to do with M&A and what's the [C] Company's appetite for M&A, particularly outside the US and even more so in Europe. Has that increased or decreased perhaps over the last -- I guess since the beginning of the year? Thanks.

So, welcome Colby. The first thing I want to mention to you is that right now, we are not changing our guidance with regard to greater than 2% revenue growth for the year. We are certainly sensitive to the situation at hand with regard to the economy and the impact it is having on Business revenues. So we want to be respectful of that and we understand those aspects. So the challenge of the economy and the challenges of (inaudible) for business is something we follow really closely.

With regard to the regulatory fees, those rates were in place for the quarter. That differential was for the first quarter. The new rates have been established for the second quarter, and I believe the differential year over year is about the same -- different rates, but it is about the same stepdown. So some of that regulatory fee pressure will continue throughout the second quarter.

We are aware of that, and so we are taking that into account in all of our planning.

With regard to M&A activity, we don't comment on any M&A activity and I am not going to do that now. As we have said before, the real issues we find is that the US marketplace that we operate in is well ahead -- appears to be well ahead of the rest of the world in mobility and the developments around mobility. And as stewards of our shareholders' assets, we need to see if we can provide and take advantage of the assets and knowledge we have and provide value for our shareholders based on what we have learned. But we don't comment on M&A activities and I won't comment on any now.

Okay, thank you.

David Barden, Bank of America.

Hey, guys, thanks for taking the questions. John, it looks like with the tax benefit in the income statement and the deferred tax gain in the cash flow statement, it looks like you guys got about a $1 billion tax contribution positive to the quarter. Could you talk a little bit about how you see that shaping up over the course of the year, contributing to the $14 billion free cash flow or better guidance? And then obviously how the contribution of the Wireless business is going to layer in over the course of the year on that front?

And then, you know, a second question. If I could just kind of go back to this -- I just want to be kind of -- make sure I understand was that -- I think what you were saying is that from a competitive standpoint, from a Wireless subscriber growth standpoint, AT&T is satisfied with how it did this quarter. Stay the course in terms of general approach to the market, irrespective of what is going on with T-Mobile. And then as the LTE business kind of ramps up, look to that for future revenue growth opportunities? Is that a fair assessment of what you said earlier? Thanks.

Thanks, David. Let me take them one at a time. First of all, on the tax side of the earnings, we recognize the fact that there was about a $0.03 benefit in the income tax line, a reduction of expense, and that is what we have adjusted in our presentation. That -- if you pull that out, that leaves us with an effective tax rate just under 33%. And I think those of you who have been following us know that our kind of normal effective tax rate is somewhere in that 33% to 34% range, so I wouldn't expect that to be any different for the rest of the year.

Secondly, with regard to taxes and cash flow, first of all, we take into account an estimate of our cash tax payments as we determine cash flow and as part of our cash from operations, so that is all included. And we continue to guide that free cash flow will be in excess of $14 billion this year.

I understand people questioning that number, based on the fact that we are $3.9 billion in the first quarter; that is higher than last year. Understand the question. But right now, we will continue to guide to greater than $14 billion.

With regard to our Mobility business, let me make sure I clarify it in the sense of -- we follow the marketplace. We continue to look at what others are doing and what we are doing ourselves, and we continue to develop ideas and methodologies and processes to be more competitive. The best example I can give you is the mobile share plans, as well as Digital Life. So we are doing that all the time.

We will continue to do that, don't have any new ideas or new product offerings or bundles to announce to you today. But I don't want to suggest to you that there is any lack of activity on improving our business or growing it more rapidly than it is growing today.

And John, just to follow up quick on how the contribution of the Wireless stake is going to get flowed through the tax line, the cash flow benefit for the rest of the year.

Yes, as I say, we have taken into account any of the tax benefits -- cash or expense benefits into account in our planning in the guidance we gave in January. And quite frankly, the cash flow guidance which I've just refreshed and the EPS guidance which we are not changing has already taken that into account.

Right, got it. Thanks, guys.

Tim Horan, Oppenheimer.

Thanks, guys. Just two broad questions. Back on the Wireless front, John, maybe to delve into it a little bit more, do you think you have pricing power in Wireless as it maybe improved versus where you were a couple of years ago, and do you think you can take advantage of that?

And then secondly, maybe you can delve into on the supplier side a little bit more. It sounds like the CapEx obviously is coming in below expectations for the next couple of years, which is great. But is that somewhat coming from just better pricing that you are seeing on the supplier front?

And I guess, you know, back to a question I have almost every quarter -- can we start to see the same thing on the handset side? Do you think you have a little bit more leverage at this stage on the handset supplier front? Thanks.

So good to hear from you Tim. Let me take a few things. One thing -- I would tell you this. On the Wireless side, the way I think about it is this improving network that we have, and, you know, the recognition from RootMetrics, not only have the fastest but the highest quality, and this more rapid deployment than we expected, that I expected with regard to our LTE, really gives us -- gets us feeling good about the opportunities for the overall Wireless business to add more customers, to lower churn, retain more customers and to generate revenue from usage-based devices. So I think, if you will, the powerful piece of our Wireless business that is going on now is really this opportunity to utilize that really powerful LTE network and grow the business. That is how we are focused on it.

With regard to CapEx, I would suggest to you that there is a couple of things going on. One, we got deployment out of the LTE faster and on an accelerated basis even last year, when we had guided to finish at 150 million LTE POPs, and when we had the earnings announcement, we were at about 170 million. And now we are guiding to be nearly 90% complete with our 300 million POPs by the end of this year. So that acceleration is taking some of the CapEx pressure off of '14 and '15.

Secondly, we are finding that the integration opportunities, when we do a -- if you will, a bottoms-up build plan analysis, we are finding more integration efficiencies and opportunities than we had originally planned for, and that is driving a lot of the savings.

And third, the ability to get out there quicker is really taking off some of the pressure that we expected to have on some of our core non-Velocity investments. So those are all combining.

We are getting efficiency in the build and effectiveness in the build and pushing it that way. I would suggest that is where the capital savings are coming from.

The last thing, Tim, I would suggest to you is we are always looking at ways to improve the economics of the handset model. We think that is certainly really important, and we continue to look for ways to do that. But what I will tell you, we continue to do it with a focus on the customer and making sure we develop ideas that are not only focused on economic efficiency for us, but for customer satisfaction. We have to have -- we believe we have to have both pieces of that to really be successful long-term with it.

Thank you.

Chris Larsen, Piper Jaffray.

Yes, I wonder if we could switch over to slide 12, where you talk about the cloud and hosting there. And two questions specifically. First, if you could talk a little bit about what you have been seeing in terms of pricing on cloud. There has been a lot made of the recent pricing declines out of Amazon and Rackspace, and how that has affected you.

And then given the fact that you have dedicated a slide to it in your slide deck, maybe you can size up that opportunity. How big does that have to become before it can begin to move the needle here on the top line for Wireline results? Thanks.

So a couple of things. One, with regard to how to move the needle on Wireline results, as you all know, our Wireline revenue base is in that $60 billion plus range. So I will leave it to your own judgment on how big it needs to get to, if you will, move that needle. But we believe it is a real opportunity for us to help us growing that revenue, and also providing us the opportunity to continue to provide those network-based services. So keeping the traffic on our services, as well as providing the security and the other hosting services. So we believe that the opportunity is strong for us.

I would suggest to you even recent events will tell you that with regard to our managed network and our security opportunities, it will provide an even better advantage for us. That is one.

With regard to recent pricing activities, I would suggest to you that I think there is going to be continued pricing movement in this area. We are aware of that, we are prepared for that. But we feel long-term, we can provide a quality product with good margins to generate returns for our shareholders. So we think it is very much worth our investment.

And specifically, we believe it because we have the, if you will, dual side of not only providing the cloud and the hosting, but also being able to provide the mobility connectivity to that for a customer's employee base. So we feel really good about both sides of it.

Thank you.

I think we have got time for just one more question.

Brett Feldman, Deutsche Bank.

Thanks for getting me in. So some of the earlier questions were sort of alluding to the fact that your postpaid phone base slipped a little bit in the quarter. And obviously, the first quarter is seasonally slow and so it is hard to read into that.

But if we put seasonality aside, what do you anticipate for your traditional phone base going forward? Is this something that we should see outside of a seasonally slow period continue to grow? Or are you somewhat indifferent now, not because you don't care, but just because the real revenue growth driver going forward is data volume on your network, and not necessarily the net change in your phone base quarter to quarter?

Yes, so I think we do find it important to continue to, if you will, grow our phone base, but more importantly, convert our phone base. Because if you think about the differential between 70% of our postpaid and the 90% sales flow, if you think about that on our base, it is 14 million customers. And when you convert them to smartphones, you may think of them as a phone, but they are generating significant data usage on the network, and an opportunity for real revenue creation.

So we are focused on it, but we are also focused on growing our customer base. I don't want to leave you with the impression it is just conversion; it is both. And we believe we are positioned well to do that.

So I think it is both aspects of that. But when you have got the quality network like we do and the great sales operations like we have and a customer-focused approach, we are optimistic about our ability to be very successful.

All right, thanks for taking the question.

With that, I want to thank you for being with us this afternoon. We have had a solid start to the year, and believe we have built a very strong foundation for growth going forward. Our momentum is solid. Our balance sheet is strong. And our Project VIP expansion is going to bring us even more opportunity. As always, we thank you for being on the call and we thank you for your interest in AT&T. Goodnight.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude your conference call for today. We do thank you for your participation and for using AT&T's Executive Teleconference. You may now disconnect.