I'll research VZ before writing the preview. Let me gather recent earnings data, guidance, and news in parallel.Let me read the most recent Q1 2026 earnings call and release to understand guidance and key metrics.Let me get the year-ago Q2 2025 results for comparison and check competitor/sector read-through (TMUS reported 7/23, stock dropped sharply).I now have what I need. Here's my earnings preview for Verizon.

Verizon (VZ) — Q2 2026 Earnings Preview

Reports Friday, July 24, 2026 (before market open) | 2026Q2 Earnings Call

The One-Line Setup

This is the fourth quarterly report of the Dan Schulman turnaround, and expectations have quietly re-rated higher. After a blockbuster Q4 2025 and a Q1 2026 that produced Verizon's first positive first-quarter phone net adds since 2013, the burden of proof has shifted: the market now needs to see that the momentum is durable, not a promotional sugar-high — and it needs it against a competitive backdrop that just got noisier (strong AT&T, decelerating T-Mobile).

Where the Stock Is Coming In

Price into the print: ~$43.83 (7/23 close), up roughly +8–9% YTD — meaningfully outperforming AT&T (~-7%) and T-Mobile (~-10%). VZ has become the relative-value winner in a beaten-up telecom group.
Valuation: ~8.8x the midpoint of FY26 adjusted EPS guidance ($4.95–$4.99) with a ~6.5% dividend yield ($0.7075/qtr, 20th consecutive annual raise). This is still a "show-me" valuation despite the rally — the yield tells you the market wants proof of sustainable FCF before paying up.
Reaction history: The re-rating was earned on Q4 (+~12% on 1/30); Q1's beat-and-raise (4/27) drew a more muted positive reaction because good news was increasingly priced in. That matters — the bar is higher now.

Consensus & The Year-Ago Bar

Per Barron's, the Street is looking for approximately: - Adjusted EPS: ~$1.28 (vs. $1.22 adjusted / $1.18 GAAP a year ago) - Revenue: ~$35.2B (vs. $34.5B a year ago)

Q2 2025 base to beat: | Metric | Q2 2025 | |---|---| | Total revenue | $34.5B | | Adjusted EPS | $1.22 | | Wireless service revenue | $20.9B (+2.2%) | | Adjusted EBITDA | $12.8B | | Total postpaid phone net adds | -9K (Consumer -51K) | | Broadband net adds | 293K (FWA 278K, Fios ~45K) | | Consumer postpaid phone churn | 0.90% |

Note the comparison gets easier on subs (year-ago was a weak Q2) but the setup is more complex on revenue: 2026 numbers now include Frontier (consolidated since 1/20/26), so watch for organic vs. reported distinctions.

The 5 Things That Actually Matter

1. Did phone net-add momentum survive Q2?

Q1 delivered +55K total postpaid phone net adds, a ~340K year-over-year swing, driven by a higher mix of "new-to-Verizon" gross adds. Management explicitly said momentum "continued into Q2." Q2 is seasonally softer, so even a modestly positive number (vs. -9K a year ago) confirms the trajectory. Watch consumer specifically — Q1 consumer was still a net loss of 35K (a 321K improvement); a swing toward flat/positive consumer phone adds would be the strongest possible signal.

2. Churn — the whole thesis in one metric.

Schulman has repeatedly framed churn as the truest scorecard of whether the customer-centric strategy is working. Consumer postpaid phone churn improved to 0.90% in Q1, exiting March below 0.85%. Management said half or more of future net adds should come from churn reduction rather than expensive gross-add promotions. If churn holds near/below 0.85%, the "healthier, cheaper growth" narrative is validated. Any back-up toward 0.95%+ would spook the stock given how much good news is embedded.

3. The wireless service revenue inflection.

Management called Q1 the low point of 2026 for mobility & broadband service revenue and reaffirmed 2–3% full-year growth (~$93B), with wireless service revenue "approximately flat" for the year as promo-amortization headwinds fade. Q1 carried an ~80bp drag from January network-outage credits that won't repeat. The key tell: does reported M&B service revenue growth step up into the 2–3% range? This is where a reaffirm/raise on the top line would matter most.

4. Cost transformation, EBITDA and the path to another guidance raise.

Verizon is targeting $5B of 2026 opex savings (network decommissioning, advertising efficiency, lower cost of acquisition/retention, ~13K headcount already out, plus AI enablement). Q1 produced record adjusted EBITDA of $13.4B (+6.7%, 140bp margin expansion) and its best adjusted EPS growth since 2021. Having already raised the FY26 adjusted EPS guide to 5–6% at Q1, the question is whether Q2 momentum sets up another raise — a genuine possibility, and probably what bulls are paying for.

5. Free cash flow ramp and the balance sheet.

FY26 FCF guide is $21.5B+ (~7% growth), the highest since 2020. Q1 FCF was $3.8B after absorbing ~$1.1B of severance — so the ramp is expected to be back-half weighted. Post-Frontier leverage sits at 2.6x net unsecured debt/EBITDA (up from 2.2x); management has paid down ~half of Frontier's debt and reaffirmed a return to 2.0–2.25x in 2027. Also track the $3B+ buyback program (first in over a decade; $2.5B done in Q1) — pace here signals management's confidence in cash generation.

Broadband / Convergence & Frontier

Q1: 341K broadband net adds (214K FWA, 127K fiber), base at ~16.8M. Watch the deliberate mix-shift toward fiber as Frontier is integrated.
On track for 32M+ fiber passings by year-end; longer-term 40–50M ambition. Frontier synergies of $1B+ run-rate by 2028 reaffirmed.
Convergence is the margin story: converged customers churn ~30% less. Only ~20% of the base takes broadband — the cross-sell runway is the strategic upside.

Competitive Read-Through — This Is Fresh and Important

Both peers just reported, and they cut in opposite directions:

AT&T (7/22): strong. +432K postpaid phone adds (well above ~325K Street), record fiber adds (~367K), EBITDA/FCF beats, and it accelerated its buyback to ~$10B. AT&T's convergence bundle is clearly working (~45% mobile attach on broadband). This is the competitive threat to Verizon's share gains — AT&T is winning value-conscious and bundled customers.
T-Mobile (7/23): decelerating. 277K postpaid account adds, down 13% YoY (weakest in ~2 years), and the first quarter in a long time that guidance did not rise across the board. Stock fell ~6–9%. This is arguably a positive for VZ — the industry's share-taker is slowing, and rationality/moderating competitive intensity (which Schulman flagged in Q1) may be showing up.

Net: the industry backdrop is a mixed bag — subscriber demand is healthy but AT&T is a sharpened competitor, while T-Mobile's slowdown validates VZ's "disciplined growth" bet. VZ needs to show it can grow without re-igniting promo spend.

Wildcards & Risks to Watch

SpaceX/Starlink direct-to-cell is increasingly cited as a longer-term competitive/narrative overhang; expect a question on the call.
Retail restructuring: the recently announced plan to divest 274 corporate stores and cut ~3,000 jobs (part of 16,000+ total reductions) — watch for any associated charges and commentary on execution risk to the customer experience.
ARPA: Q1 postpaid ARPA dipped (partly outage credits). Management expects ARPA to improve through the year; a soft print would raise "growth quality" questions.
AI monetization: Schulman teased "multibillions" in potential AI-infrastructure/fiber revenue with hyperscalers "in the next 3–6 months." Any concrete update would be an incremental positive.
Guidance dependency: because guidance was already raised in Q1, a mere reaffirm could disappoint a market that's begun to expect serial raises.

Bottom Line

Verizon goes into Q2 as the telecom group's turnaround darling, having delivered on Schulman's early promises — positive phone adds, falling churn, record EBITDA, and a resumed buyback. The stock's outperformance and ~8.8x multiple mean the easy, sentiment-driven part of the re-rating may be behind it. From here, the report needs to show three things simultaneously: (1) churn holding near/below 0.85% and phone adds staying positive despite a strong AT&T, (2) the service-revenue inflection off the Q1 low, and (3) evidence the $5B cost program is dropping to EBITDA/FCF — ideally teeing up another EPS guidance raise. Deliver that and the yield-plus-growth case gets easier to underwrite; miss on churn or top-line acceleration and a well-owned "consensus long" could see profit-taking.

Key numbers to circle at 6:30–7:00am ET: consumer postpaid phone net adds & churn, reported M&B service revenue growth vs. the 2–3% range, adjusted EBITDA/EPS, FCF trajectory, and any change to full-year guidance.