AABA Altaba Inc

By Sarah Krouse 

Verizon Communications Inc.'s core wireless business continues to add customers in the crowded U.S. market, but the company's quarterly profit was hit by charges related to a restructuring in its struggling media business.

The carrier previously said it added a net 653,000 new postpaid phone connections during the final quarter of 2018. That pool of new phone connections was an increase from the net 295,000 it added in the third quarter and a 50% increase from the 431,000 additions in the final quarter of 2017.

In all, net income attributable to Verizon was $1.94 billion, down from $18.67 billion a year earlier, when it received a one-time $16.8 billion reduction of its deferred tax liabilities. Quarterly revenue rose 1% to $34.3 billion, with gains in wireless offset by declines in Verizon's landline and media units.

Verizon's fourth-quarter results included $4.9 billion pre-tax in charges, mostly from an accounting charge to write down the value of its Oath media business, which was created by the acquisitions of AOL and Yahoo.

The carrier previously announced it would book a more than $4 billion accounting charge related to Oath. That unit, which has been rebranded as Verizon Media Group, failed to meet revenue targets and earlier this month said it would lay off 7% of its staff and revamp its strategy.

Verizon said revenue in the media business was $2.1 billion in the fourth quarter, down nearly 6% from the prior year.

In addition to the Oath layoffs, Verizon is in the process of shedding about 10,400 workers as part of an effort to cut $10 billion in costs by 2021 as it focuses on building its next-generation 5G wireless network. The company said it had cut $2.3 billion by the end of 2018.

Executives have said they will avoid a large-scale content acquisition and instead focus on building out Verizon's network and using the media assets the company already has, which include websites such as Yahoo Finance, HuffPost and TechCrunch.

Write to Sarah Krouse at sarah.krouse@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

January 29, 2019 08:15 ET (13:15 GMT)

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