Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ) is a leading telecommunications company based in the United States. Verizon is one of the largest providers of wireless communication services, broadband internet, and entertainment services in the country. The company was formed in 2000 through the merger of Bell Atlantic Corp. and GTE Corp., both of which were former regional Bell operating companies (RBOCs). The company is headquartered in New York City.
Verizon operates through two main segments: Verizon Consumer and Verizon Business. The Consumer segment provides wireless and wireline services, including data, voice, and video communication services, as well as device sales and connected devices like wearables and smart home devices. The Business segment, on the other hand, offers wireless and wireline services to enterprises, governments, and wholesale customers, including services like Internet of Things (IoT), cloud, security, and managed network services.
Verizon has been a major player in the rollout of 5G technology, investing heavily in infrastructure and spectrum to expand its 5G network across the United States. The company has also been involved in several acquisitions to expand its service offerings and improve its technological capabilities, such as its acquisitions of AOL in 2015, Yahoo in 2017 (which together formed Oath, later renamed Verizon Media), and video conferencing platform BlueJeans in 2020. In 2021, Verizon announced the sale of Verizon Media to private equity firm Apollo Global Management for $5 billion.
as of April 18, 2023
The growth has been slow on the top line, but the company has squeezed a lot of profit out on the bottom line by keeping its operating costs pretty level for the last decade. This has helped it book over $175 billion in total net income since 2013. It generates a staggering $1.16 million per employee in top line revenue and over $180,000 in profit, after tax. To do it, however, Verizon had to increase its long-term debt from $89 billion to over $143 billion – not an insignificant amount. So, despite retained earnings skyrocketing from just under $2 billion in 2013 to over $82 billion currently, that hasn’t translated into any additional market value. The only silver lining is that on all of its debt, now totally $181 billion, Verizon only pays around $3.6 billion in interest expenses. Bottom line: debt isn’t good no matter how cheaply it is acquired.
