AT&T Inc. Overview

AT&T Inc.

Introduction

AT&t Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications holding company, which engages in the provision of telecommunications media and technology services. It is a fully integrated solution provider, providing advanced mobile services, next-generation TV, high-speed internet, and smart solutions for people and businesses. It is the world’s largest telecommunications company by revenue and the third largest provider of mobile telephone service in the U.S.

As of 2022, AT&T Inc. was ranked 13^th on the Fortune 500 rankings of the largest United States corporation. The company was founded in 1983 and is headquartered in Dallas, Texas, United States.

It operates through the following segments: Communications, WarnerMedia, Latin America, and Xandar. The communications segment provides services to businesses and consumers located in the U.S or U.S territories, and businesses globally. The WarnerMedia segment develops, produces, and distributes feature films, television, gaming, and other content over various physical and digital formats. The Latin America segment provides entertainment and wireless services outside of the U.S. The Xandar segment provides advertising services.

Although the company first started as a spin-off of Cingular Wireless, it offers a variety of postpaid and prepaid plans to choose from. Plans are available for smartphones, tablets, cameras, computers, and wearable devices.

Services

CELL PHONE PLANS: AT&T Inc. offers the following cell phone plans that start as low as $65 per month:

• AT&T 4GB: $50 for 40GB of data
• AT&T Value Plus: $50 for Unlimited data.
• AT&T Unlimited Starter: $65 for Unlimited data
• AT&T Unlimited Extra: $75 for Unlimited data
• AT&T Unlimited Premium: $85 for Unlimited data

AT&T Inc. also offers smartphone plans that start at $65 per month for unlimited talk, text, and data.

FAMILY PLANS: AT&T also offers family plans. Families can add up to 10 lines under one account. It reduces the cost of their unlimited data plans to $30/line for Unlimited Starter, $35/line for Unlimited Extra, and $40/line for Unlimited Elite.

OTHER PLANS: AT&T also offers tablet, hotspot, and smartwatch plans. You can add a tablet line for $220/month to any postpaid plan. You can also add a smartwatch line to any AT&T postpaid plan for $10/month. Hotspot plans are only available via AT&T Prepaid.

SIGNATURE PROGRAM DISCOUNT: Qualifying business employees, AARP members, union members, and students can all save $10/month per line on AT&T Unlimited Elite. Military veterans, first responders, teachers, nurses, and physicians can all save 5% off their total AT&T bill. All AT&T customers can also save $10 per line per month by enabling auto-pay and paperless billing.

AT&T ActiveArmour: This is a built-in protection with 24/7 proactive network security for wireless and internet at home and work. It has free in-app security features from custom call controls to managing who’s on your Wi-Fi networks.

AT&T Inc. supports VoLTE, Wi-Fi calling, visual voicemail, mobile hotspot, up to 4K video streaming quality (Only on the Elite plan), 5G access, eSIM, domestic data roaming, unlimited data roaming in Canada and Mexico, and Free international texting from the U.S. to more than 120 supported countries. All AT&T plans also get a 6-month free trial of Stadia Pro, and a free HBO Max subscription with AT&T Unlimited Elite.

There are also a huge number of add-ons available at AT&T;

• AT&T Detailed Billing- $2/month
• AT&T Mobile Insurance- $9/month
• AT&T Mobile Security & Call Protect (Free)- $0/month
• AT&T Mobile Security & Call Protect Opt-Out – $0/month
• AT&T Mobile Security & Call Protect Plus- $4/month
• AT&T Mobile Security Plus for Unlimited Plans- $0/month
• AT&T Number Sync Blocker- $0/month
• AT&T Passport- $70/month
• AT&T Personal Cloud 2TB- 10/month
• AT&T Personal Cloud 500GB- $5/month
• AT&T Protect Advantage- $15/month
• AT&T Protect Advantage for 4 – $ 40/month
• AT&T Purchase Blocker – $0/month
• AT&T Push to Talk – $5/month
• AT&T Secure Family – $8/month
• AT&T Wi-Fi Call Blocker – $0/month
• Day Pass – $10/day
• Pay-As-You-Go International – $10

How to create an AT&T account

All you have to do to create your AT&T account is go to the ‘my AT&T’ sign-in page with your billing zip code and enter your AT&T phone number or account number. You may even already have an account if you have other AT&T devices or services. Once you’re on the page, you only need to follow the prompts.

Your AT&T account allows you to view and pay your bill online, combine your services into one convenient monthly bill, manage your accounts and even sign up for paperless billing.

Challenges

Even with its success, AT&T cut its dividend as well as FCF guidance this year. One of the reasons for this is due to the fact that inflation-related costs rose $1 billion above expectations. The company noticed a sudden rise in customer payment delays in the second quarter due to the inflation.

AT&T also has plenty of expenditures. The company is investing $24 billion this year and next in 5G and fiber-optic network expansion. It is also paying down the massive debt accumulated during its entertainment media buying spree to reach a net debt-to-adjusted EBITDA ratio in the 2.5 range by next year. At the end of the second quarter, the ratio was 3:23.

This combination of factors forced AT&T Inc. to cut FCF estimates. The company enacted price hikes to offset rising costs, but higher prices could stir up customer deviation. Competition in the telecom sector is heating up. New competitors have entered the industry, such as Charter Communications. So it is no surprise AT&T noticed post-paid phone bring increase from 0.69% last year to 0.75% in the second quarter.

Sustainability

AT&T Inc. is working to position itself within the communications industry as a leader when it comes to sustainability goal setting, transparent reporting, and publicly sharing its process, operating principles, and progress.

“I’m a firm believer that companies need to set goals that are ambitious, that stretch them, and reflect the right thing to do for the world, even if they have no idea how they’ll reach them,” said Carroll, the Assistant Vice President of Global Environmental Sustainability Team at AT&T. “This is no time to play small.”.

Due to this, AT&T Inc. has set the goal of being a net zero company by 2035. To do this, the company has been focusing on six areas:

• Exchange significant portions of energy-intense network equipment for low-cost, energy-efficient hardware. So far, AT&T has completed 75 percent of this work.
• Transition to a low-emission fleet.
• Accelerate energy efficiency and network optimization efforts to reduce electricity use and cost.
• Support the renewable energy marketplace by committing to purchase power from renewable energy developers.
• Invest in carbon offsets to recover the emissions they cannot eliminate.
• Expand sustainable feature film and TV production (through WarnerMedia, a division of AT&T that was spun off earlier this month) with clean tech solutions, sustainable products, and reuse and waste reduction efforts.

Carroll cautions against trying to chart your company’s course on sustainability initiatives without a map. “Don’t do this work alone” he says, “Steal shamelessly. See what others have done in your industry. There are so many industry groups out there who want to work with you.”

Carroll also gave advice on reporting saying “look at all the reporting frameworks out there. They can guide and inform your expectations. Pick the frameworks that work best for you. Again, the industry groups can really help you here.” Common reporting frameworks used by AT&T and other companies include the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) standards, Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) recommendations and Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) standards.

Large companies may be moving out of an era of issuing press releases about sustainability, and into a new era of transparency and accountability. “Set the goals,” Carroll advices. “Make them public, make them ambitious. It’s the only way we’re ever going to create and experience progress.”

AT&T has also reported total CO2e emissions (Direct + indirect) for the twelve months, ending 31 December 2020 at 5,788 Kt (-737/-11.3% y-o-y) and plans to reduce emissions by 63% by 2030 from a 2015 base year. This science-based target is aligned with Paris Agreement to limit global warming to 1.5 degree Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

Finances and Figures

AT&T is one of the world’s largest telecom companies, with over $163 billion in revenues.

As of 2021, AT&T had a revenue of $164.86 billion with an operating income of $23.35 billion, a net income of $20.08 billion, total assets of $551.62 billion and total equity of $183.86. Currently, AT&T stock price is $17.90.

AT&T has raised a total of $200 million in a single venture fund, ONAP Focused Venture Capital Fund. This fund was announced on July 6, 2017 and raised a total of $200 million

The company has also made 51 investments, with their most recent one happening on June 28 2020 when Tech Goes Home raised $100k. They have also made 14 diversity investments. Their most recent diversity investment was on November 1 2020 when Beereaders raised $960k.

AT&T has acquired 32 organizations. Their most recent acquisition was AT&T CyberSecurity on July 10, 2018.

AT&T has more than 2 million monthly app downloads according to Apptopia. The most popular apps downloaded are DIRECTV, myAT&T, and AT&T ActiveARMOR. Its site is ranked 554 among websites globally based on its over two hundred million monthly web visitors. It has a 26.52% monthly visit growth rate.

AT&T currently has an employee base of 203,000 as of January 2022.

Future of AT&T

Today’s AT&T is different from its prepandemic days. Under CEO John Stankey, who took over in 2020, it underwent substantial changes, divesting the entertainment assets it spent billions to acquire under previous leadership.

These changes concluded in April when AT&T’s WarnerMedia merged with cable company Discovery to form Warmer Bros.Discovery, retaining AT&T to a telecom focused organization. This is paying off as this new incarnation is successfully capturing customers, particularly among post-paid phone subscribers, the telecom industry’s most valuable customer segment. The company saw its post-paid phone net additions reach 813,000 in the second quarter, its highest second-quarter total in over a decade.

AT&T’s 2022 post-paid phone net adds coming up to 1.5 million through two quarters outpaced last year’s 1.4 million. If this performance continues through the second half of the year, it can exceed last year’s record-setting 3 Million post-paid phone net adds, a total higher than the previous 10 years combined.

These customer gains propelled AT&T’s second-quarter mobile revenue to $19.9 billion, a 5.2% increase over the prior year. The company’s 2022 revenue is higher than previous years, after adjusting for AT&T’s divested assets, thanks to increase in its mobile and fiber-optic broadband businesses. AT&T’s new fiber-optic internet product noticed a near 28% year-over-year revenue growth in the second quarter, aiding its broadband consumer business to hit $2.4 billion, up 5.6% from the prior year.

In the future, AT&T plans to ramp up investment in their key areas of growth – 5G and fiber. They also plan to retain their focus on growing customer relationships, continuously improve their execution to enhance their customer experience and deliver growth and returns and shareholders.

AT&T intends to become America’s best broadband provider, Underpinned by a best-in-class network with fiber at its foundation. By owning and operating both fiber and wireless, AT&T owner’s economics plan to provide better flexibility to deliver high quality broadband in more places for businesses and consumers.

AT&T opportunity is driven by its ability to deliver symmetric solutions for consumers and businesses and expansion into the underpenetrated and small and midsize business customer segment. These customers want reliability, speed and simplicity, and AT&T provides all three: reliable fiber and 5G networks with the fastest fiber speeds in the nation and a simplified experience with straightforward pricing.

AT&T has many more plans for the future which are set to put it on a high pedestal if achieved. The company also looks well on its way to achieving them.