AT&T Q2 2026 Earnings Call: Complete Transcript

AT&T (NYSE: T ) reported second-quarter financial results on Wednesday. The transcript from the company's second-quarter earnings call has been provided below. This transcript is brought to you APIs. For real-time access to our entire catalog, please visit for a consultation.

View the webcast at Watch the full earnings call below: Summary AT&T reported a strong second quarter, with over 1 million net additions in advanced connectivity subscribers and record fiber and fixed wireless net adds. 2%, driven by improvements in operating leverage and cost transformation initiatives. The company plans to expand fiber reach to 8 million new locations, leveraging its Lumen acquisition and emphasizing fiber and 5G as core strategic pillars. AT&T announced an increase in share repurchase plans to $10 billion in 2026, citing a disparity between operating fundamentals and stock valuation.

The company anticipates the rise of AI-driven connectivity will significantly increase network traffic, reinforcing its fiber and 5G investments. AT&T is progressing with its copper network decommissioning, supported by recent FCC actions, to streamline operations and cost structures. Management expressed confidence in maintaining strong growth and reiterated full-year guidance for adjusted EPS and service revenue growth. John Stankey highlighted the strategic importance of convergence between fiber and wireless services, emphasizing customer retention and lifetime value.

AT&T's CFO, Pascal Desroche, will retire at the end of the year, with Jennifer Byry returning to succeed him, ensuring continuity in the company's strategic direction. Full Transcript OPERATOR Good morning and welcome to AT&T's second quarter 2026 earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Should you need assistance during the call, please press star then zero and an operator will assist you offline.

Following the presentation, the call will be open for questions. If you would like to ask a question, please press star then one and you will be placed in the question queue. If you are in the question queue and would like to withdraw your question, you can do so by pressing star then two. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded.

I would now like to turn the conference call over to our host, Brett Feldman, Treasurer and Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead. Brett Feldman, Treasurer and Head of Investor Relations Thank you and good morning. Welcome to our second quarter call.

I'm Brett Feldman, Treasurer and Head of Investor Relations for AT&T. Joining me on the call today are John Stankey, our Chairman and CEO, and Pascal Desroche, our CFO. Before we begin, I need to call your attention to our Safe Harbor statement. It says that some of our comments today may be forward looking.

As such, they are subject to risks and uncertainties described in AT&T's SEC filings. Results may differ materially. Additional information as well as our earnings materials are available on the Investor Relations website. With that, I'll turn things over to John.

John Stankey — AT&T CEO Thanks Brett and good morning everyone. I do appreciate you joining us today. Earlier this year we provided an outlook for accelerated growth and execution of our strategy, and that's exactly what we delivered. In the second quarter we gained more than 1 million advanced connectivity subscribers from fiber, fixed wireless and postpaid phones, with all three product categories posting higher net additions year over year.

This was our best ever second quarter for AT&T fiber net adds and a record quarter for combined fiber and fixed wireless net adds. We also continued to grow our base of converged customers. 5% of our advanced home Internet customers also have a postpaid wireless account with AT&T and this convergence rate reached 45% when excluding customers within our acquired footprint from Lumen. These are high lifetime value subscribers and our strong customer growth is a key driver of our accelerated financial growth during the second quarter.

At a consolidated level, we reported faster year over year growth in service revenue, adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EPS. Compared to our growth in the first quarter, we also achieved our highest consolidated adjusted EBITDA margin since we refocused our business on advanced connectivity at the beginning of this decade. This was driven by our improved operating leverage as we gained scale in 5G and fiber, reduced legacy costs as we shrink our footprint, and through continued implementation of our cost transformation initiatives across the company. And we're driving growth in our advanced connectivity segment across both consumer and business channels.

During the second quarter we achieved year over year growth in advanced connectivity business service revenues. This reflects our success at repositioning the business around fiber and 5G just as we did in consumer and expanding our reach through a more balanced direct, indirect and digital distribution model. The result is growth in converged relationships and new logos and you're seeing that momentum in our improved financial performance. It's taken a lot of work to get here and we continue to expect advanced connectivity business service revenues will grow at a low single digit CAGR through 2028.

The strength of our performance comes from the structural advantages we've established after years of consistent and targeted investment. This will be our largest year ever for fiber expansion with plans to reach 8 million new locations, including over 4 million locations acquired from Lumen. As I've said in the past, where we have fiber we win with fiber and wireless. And I expect that as we expand our funnel of new fiber locations, we'll drive stro