Wireless Group Highlights
Bell Atlantic's Wireless Group enjoyed one of its strongest fourth quarters ever, with record subscriber growth for Bell
Atlantic Mobile (BAM) and record growth in new customers in the Group's International Wireless portfolio.
The Wireless Group ended the year with 12 million global proportionate wireless subscribers, up 39.1 percent over year-end
1998. The figure includes 452,000 added through BAM's acquisition of Frontier Cellular properties in upstate New York in
December. Proportionate net customer additions in the quarter totaled 954,000 (excluding the Frontier customers), 30.5
percent more than in fourth quarter 1998, with BAM totaling 363,000 net additions, 20.2 percent more than in the prior-year
period. The Group's proportionate net customer additions for the year totaled 2.7 million, 23.4 percent more than in 1998.
Total proportionate wireless revenues increased 27.5 percent in the quarter to $1.6 billion, and totaled $5.9 billion for the
year, 28 percent higher than 1998. Proportionate operating income reached $293 million in the fourth quarter, an increase of
50.3 percent over fourth quarter 1998, with proportionate operating cash flow increasing 32 percent to $536 million.
Full-year operating income totaled $1.1 billion, up 41.2 percent over 1998, with full-year operating cash flow increasing 29.3
percent to $1.9 billion.
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Other domestic highlights:
-- Bell Atlantic Mobile closed out the quarter with 7.7 million customers, up 24 percent from 1998. Quarterly revenues grew
23.1 percent over
fourth quarter 1998, to $1.1 billion. For the year, BAM revenues year grew 18.9 percent to $4.1 billion.
-- Underscoring the quality of its network performance and overall customer service, BAM won numerous service awards
during the year, ncluding the highest customer rating in the Yankee Group 1999 Mobile User Survey; the highest ranking
from the J.D. Power and Associates 1999 U.S. Wireless Customer Satisfaction Studysm in New York and Boston; first
place for customer satisfaction in the 1999 Solomon-Wolff Associates annual customer research survey and Wireless
Week's Overall Excellence Award for 1999.
-- The primary force behind BAM's strong 1999 growth was the company's popular digital wireless services. More than 70
percent of all new retail customers and nearly 40 percent of BAM's total base now subscribe to CDMA digital services,
generating 72 percent of the company's busy-hour network usage. BAM continued its aggressive rollout of new digital voice
and data service offerings, including:
-- Web Access service, featuring Web-enabled digital wireless phones that allow customers to surf the Web.
-- Share-A-Minutesm, which allows families and small businesses to share monthly access and local airtime minutes among
multiple phones -- all on one bill.
-- "Call Me" service, an option freeing wireless customers from paying for incoming calls received in their local service area.
-- On Jan. 18, BAM and GTE Wireless announced they have been selected by General Motors to establish a nationwide
wireless network that will
support expansion of its OnStar in-vehicle services to include personal calling and Internet access. OnStar estimates that
more than four
million vehicles will be equipped with access to its communications services in the next three years.
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SOURCE Bell Atlantic CO: Bell Atlantic ST: New York IN: TLS SU: ERN01/24/2000 06:29
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