Last updated: October 26, 2026
Verizon kicked off the week’s earnings calendar Monday with its best third-quarter subscriber growth in five years, a raised full-year outlook, and a new $2 billion-plus infrastructure deal with Amazon Web Services — yet shares slipped anyway after revenue came in light of Wall Street’s estimate.
Verizon’s Best Quarter in Years Meets a Revenue Miss
Record subscriber growth and a landmark AWS deal couldn’t offset a top-line shortfall as VZ kicks off a week stacked with S&P 100 earnings and the Fed’s Wednesday decision.
Record Subscriber Growth, Light Revenue
Verizon (NYSE: VZ) reported third-quarter adjusted earnings of $1.31 per share, up roughly 8% from a year earlier and ahead of the $1.27 analyst consensus, while revenue of $34.3 billion rose 1.5% year over year but fell short of the $34.85 billion Wall Street expected. The quarter’s standout was wireless: Verizon added 406,000 postpaid phone subscribers, its best third quarter in five years and up more than 800% from the year-ago period, while total customer accounts grew by 137,000 — the company’s best such result in over a decade. Mobility and broadband subscriber additions reached 1.7 million through the first nine months of the year, nearly double the 879,000 added over the same span last year. Adjusted EBITDA rose 8% to $13.8 billion. Verizon raised its full-year postpaid phone net-add guidance to a range of 1.1 million to 1.2 million, up from a prior target of 750,000 to 1 million and roughly triple last year’s pace.
A $2 Billion AI Infrastructure Deal With Amazon
Alongside earnings, Verizon and Amazon Web Services announced a landmark deal worth more than $2 billion in which Verizon will provide its high-capacity fiber-optic network to support AI workloads running in AWS data centers. The agreement positions Verizon as critical connectivity infrastructure for the AI buildout that has driven spending across the hyperscalers — a theme that will be back in focus later this week when Amazon itself reports third-quarter results on Thursday. It’s the latest sign that telecom carriers are angling for a piece of the AI capex cycle that has so far been dominated by chipmakers and cloud providers.
Why Shares Slipped Anyway
Despite the EPS beat, record subscriber adds, and the new Amazon partnership, VZ shares edged lower in early Monday trading as investors focused on the revenue shortfall. Wall Street’s consensus rating on the stock is Moderate Buy, split between six Buy and eight Hold ratings over the past three months, with an average price target near $50 — implying roughly 15% upside from current levels. The muted reaction underscores how the market has been treating this earnings season: beats on profitability and subscriber metrics are being weighed against any shortfall on the top line, especially with the Fed’s rate decision and a wave of mega-cap tech earnings still ahead this week.
Why It Matters
Verizon’s report opens what is shaping up to be one of the busiest weeks of the quarter: more than two dozen S&P 100 companies report earnings between now and Friday, headlined by Microsoft, Alphabet, and Amazon on Wednesday and Thursday, alongside the Federal Reserve’s rate decision Wednesday afternoon. See our full Stock Fact Sheets hub for coverage of the week’s biggest reporters, and check the homepage’s Corporate Earnings calendar for the complete list of who’s reporting and when. For more telecom and dividend-stock context, see our Verizon stock fact sheet.
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