AT&T bid farewell to WarnerMedia with increased subscriber numbers and a familiar pull on the telco from its involvement in the media sector.
The company is handing Warner Bros. Discovery 76.8 million subscribers to HBO and HBO Max, an increase of 12.8 million year on year including 8.4 million internationally. Threw million subscribers were added sequentially.
Subscription revenues were $4.0 billion, up 4.4% thanks to the arrival of HBO Max, though operating expenses climbed 13% to $7.4 billion.
The figures contrast with those announced by Netflix earlier in the week, which was down 200,000 subscribers, with a forecast to shed two million in the next quarter.
But AT&T’s dalliance with the media sector, as many telcos have found before, was not a profitable one. While revenues of $8.7 billion were up 2.5%, including increased subscription revenues of $4 billion, operating income of $1.3 billion was down 32.7% year on year because of increased investment in HBO Max and the ill-fated CNN+.
