Verizon Adds 1.2 Million Mobile Users, Extending Growth Streak

(Bloomberg) -- Verizon Communications Inc. added wireless subscribers for a seventh straight quarter, reassuring investors that its growth streak remains strong.

The largest U.S. wireless carrier added 1.2 million regular monthly customers in the holiday quarter, the biggest sales period of the year, according to preliminary fourth-quarter results released Tuesday. That matched the subscribers gains a year ago and helped send the shares on their biggest rally in more than two months.

“We’ve seen continued momentum, and we had an outstanding fourth quarter,” Verizon’s wireless chief, Ronan Dunne, said to investors Tuesday in Las Vegas.

Verizon disclosed the numbers ahead of a media push by Chief Executive Officer Hans Vestberg at the CES tech conference in Las Vegas. After Verizon’s difficult venture into video streaming and online media, Vestberg plans to refocus on the wireless business -- including a push into fifth-generation technology, or 5G, which the company is demonstrating Tuesday at CES.

Vestberg, who took over as CEO in August, started the restructuring last month with the elimination of 10,400 jobs through a buyout program. The staff reductions are part of a four-year, $10 billion cost-cutting effort.

To contact the reporter on this story: Scott Moritz in New York at smoritz6@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Nick Turner at nturner7@bloomberg.net, John J. Edwards III

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