Report date: Friday, July 24, 2026, before the market opens
Event: 2026 Q2 earnings call
Closing share price, July 23: $43.83
Verizon enters the quarter with substantially better operating momentum than it had a year ago. First-quarter phone additions, churn, margins and earnings all improved, prompting management to raise full-year adjusted EPS guidance after only one quarter.
The central question tomorrow is therefore not whether Verizon can beat quarterly EPS by a few cents. It is whether the company can demonstrate that its early turnaround is durable:
Given Verizon’s relative stock-price outperformance this year, expectations are higher than they were at the Q1 report. A routine EPS beat may not be enough if churn, service revenue or guidance disappoint.
| Metric | Q2 consensus / comparison |
|---|---|
| Revenue | Approximately $35.2 billion |
| Adjusted EPS | Approximately $1.28 |
| Q2 2025 revenue | $34.5 billion |
| Q2 2025 adjusted EPS | $1.22 as officially reported* |
| Q2 2025 total postpaid phone net adds | 9,000 net losses |
| Q2 2025 postpaid phone churn | 0.97% |
| Q2 2025 broadband net adds, recast | 310,000 |
*Some market-data services show the prior-year adjusted EPS comparison as $1.21.
The consensus implies modest reported revenue growth but healthy earnings growth. That combination reflects the investment thesis around Verizon: cost reduction and improving customer economics should drive profit faster than revenue, even with additional interest and depreciation from Frontier.
Following Q1, Verizon guided to:
A second guidance increase would be clearly positive, but it is not necessary for a good report. A clean reaffirmation accompanied by better operating trends should be sufficient. Conversely, any reduction in the phone-add, free-cash-flow or EPS outlook would undermine the emerging turnaround narrative.
Q1 was an important proof point:
The Q2 comparison is favorable: Verizon lost 9,000 postpaid phone subscribers in Q2 2025, including 51,000 consumer losses partly offset by 42,000 business additions.
Investors should focus on the interaction among four numbers:
Best outcome: Positive consumer and total phone additions, with churn at or below the prior-year 0.90% consumer level, achieved without a material increase in promotional spending.
Warning sign: Good net additions produced primarily by aggressive device subsidies. That would weaken management’s argument that the improvement is structural and driven by customer experience, segmentation and lower churn.
Verizon has said that more than half of the expected improvement in net additions could come from retention rather than higher acquisition spending. Q2 should provide the first meaningful test of that claim.
Q1 mobility and broadband service revenue grew 1.6%, below the full-year 2%-3% target. Management attributed approximately 80 basis points of pressure to credits and other effects from January’s network outage, implying underlying growth closer to the annual range.
Management also characterized Q1 as the low point of the year and said March growth had returned to the middle of the guided range.
That makes Q2 service revenue one of the report’s most important metrics. Investors should look for:
The revenue mix deserves more attention than headline revenue. Frontier and equipment sales can make total revenue comparisons difficult to interpret. Recurring mobility and broadband service revenue is the cleaner measure of underlying health.
A result near or above 2% would support management’s forecast. Another quarter materially below 2% would make the full-year target more back-end-loaded and reduce confidence in the turnaround.
The strongest part of Q1 was profitability:
Verizon has reduced its workforce substantially and is now transferring 274 corporate-owned retail locations to franchise operators, contributing to approximately 3,000 additional job reductions announced in July. Management has cited savings in advertising, network operations, contractors, real estate, customer service and internal technology.
Tomorrow, investors need more than a restatement of the $5 billion goal. Useful disclosure would include:
A high-quality beat would combine better service revenue with margin expansion. A lower-quality beat would rely heavily on temporary spending cuts, pension items, tax benefits or other below-the-line effects.
Verizon closed the Frontier acquisition on January 20, gaining a much larger fiber footprint and expanding into 31 states and Washington, D.C. Q2 is the first full quarter with Frontier included.
The strategic case rests on three potential benefits:
Verizon reported 341,000 broadband net additions in Q1, consisting of:
Management has suggested broadband additions should accelerate and that the mix will gradually move toward fiber where both technologies are available. It has also said wireless churn is almost 30% lower among converged customers.
Key Q2 questions include:
Broadband growth should be assessed alongside economics. Rapid fiber expansion is helpful only if penetration, installation costs and converged customer returns support free cash flow.
Verizon generated $3.8 billion of free cash flow in Q1, up 4%, despite approximately $1.1 billion of restructuring-related severance payments. Management expects at least $21.5 billion for the full year, implying a substantial acceleration over the remaining quarters.
Balance-sheet execution is equally important:
Verizon also completed $2.5 billion of share repurchases in Q1, versus a full-year commitment of at least $3 billion. Those shares were repurchased at an average price of $49.25, above the July 23 closing price.
Investors should watch for:
At the current share price, the annualized $2.83 dividend represents a yield of roughly 6.5%. The sustainability of that income proposition depends more on free cash flow and leverage than on quarterly EPS.
Concern about direct-to-device satellite connectivity, particularly from SpaceX, has recently weighed on the telecom sector.
This is unlikely to be a meaningful Q2 financial issue, but management commentary could influence investor perception. Relevant questions include:
The strongest response would emphasize satellite’s current capacity and use-case limitations while explaining how Verizon can integrate satellite coverage into its own customer proposition. Dismissing the issue without discussing product and network strategy would be less reassuring.
| Area | Constructive result | Concerning result |
|---|---|---|
| Postpaid phones | Positive total and consumer additions | Consumer losses or promotion-driven growth |
| Consumer phone churn | At or below 0.90%, ideally near Q1’s March exit rate | Material reversal above prior-year levels |
| Service revenue | Clear acceleration toward or into the 2%-3% range | Another quarter materially below 2% |
| EBITDA | Growth comfortably ahead of revenue | Margin pressure despite workforce reductions |
| Broadband | Strong fiber growth with stable total additions | Frontier integration disruption or sharp FWA deterioration |
| Free cash flow | On pace for at least $21.5B | Greater second-half dependence or working-capital weakness |
| Leverage | Continued Frontier debt repayment | Delayed deleveraging |
| Guidance | Reaffirmed with improved confidence or raised | Any cut to EPS, cash flow or phone additions |
| Buybacks | Additional purchases without weakening debt targets | Buybacks paused because cash generation disappoints |
This would reinforce the view that Verizon’s earnings growth is becoming less dependent on price increases and more dependent on retention, operating efficiency and convergence.
The stock reaction could be modest because much of the operational improvement is now anticipated. Commentary on second-half service revenue and cost savings would likely determine direction.
This would raise doubts about whether Q1 represented a durable inflection or simply a favorable quarter following aggressive restructuring.
The earnings bar is higher than the headline consensus suggests. Investors already expect cost reductions to deliver EPS growth, so the most valuable evidence tomorrow will be operational:
The cleanest positive report would show that Verizon can simultaneously grow subscribers, reduce promotional spending, expand margins and pay down Frontier debt. If management can demonstrate that combination and reaffirm or improve guidance, the turnaround remains credible. If earnings beat solely because of cost cuts while service revenue and customer trends weaken, the market may look through the headline result.