Shares fell as much as 11% in early trading
AT&T Crashes As Americans Can’t Afford To Pay Their Phone Bills
Tyler Durden with Zerohedge reports:
Shares of AT&T fell on Thursday after CEO John Stankey said that customers are starting to put off paying their phone bills – which resulted in the wireless carrier cutting this year’s forecast for free cash flow by $2 billion, Bloomberg reports.
Shares fell as much as 11% in early trading, the company’s largest slide since 2022 which erased the stock’s YTD gains.
A weakened consumer adds to pressure facing AT&T, which has already taken hits from deeply discounting new phones and capital outlay on network equipment. The company now expects 2022 free cash flow of $14 billion – with around $1 billion of the reduced amount tied to the “timing of customer collections.”
The news, which overshadowed second-quarter results that beat on profit and wireless subscriber growth, also hit peers Verizon and T-Mobile, sending shares lower.
