Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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Brett Feldman : I’m actually going to stick with consumer. And I was hoping we can get a little more insight into two different tools you’re using to go to market. The first is Welcome Unlimited, you’ve been advertising it quite a bit, and you’ve mentioned it a couple of times during your prepared remarks. I’m wondering to what extent are you finding that Welcome Unlimited is indeed a popular plan with new consumers versus the extent to which it’s driving wireless shoppers into your channels where you’re actually more frequently converting them into a higher-tiered plans? That’s the first question. And then it seems like you have been reluctant to make greater use of device promos. Obviously, you were using them to some extent last year. How are you thinking about the role of device promos as you go to market this year and you look to sort of sustain these positive consumer phone net adds?

Hans Vestberg : The Welcome Unlimited is working exactly as we wanted. I mean it creates the store traffic. We bring our customers in and we see that the customer gets the plans they want. We have not seen any step downs of — that is coming from that. We are more seeing an opportunity for our customers to have a conversation with them. And of course, remember, that’s a bring-your-own-device. It’s for 4 lines, and that’s the way we’ve been dealing. And we learned a lot from the first Welcome we started with somewhere in the third quarter, I remember or beginning of — end of the second when we saw a little bit — and that was an area where we were soft. That’s where we clearly saw that customers were going to others. These we now have diverted and they come to us.

And if you then add that, you see our premium unlimited continue to do well. We went up now to 45% actually from 41% in the third quarter, I think. So we added 4% more on unlimited premium. So that is working for us. Just need to be agile, stay close to see which segment and then be aggressive in the segment we need and the segment we’re performing well and we let them continue to perform well. And when it comes to device promos, yes, we understand that’s part of the competition and in part of the market. We will be in part in that as well. But we will continue to be cautious and see that we actually are using device promos in the right moment for the right customers. And you saw us last year coming in and now sometimes we’re a little bit more aggressive and others, we were actually the least aggressive.

And I think that’s how we will continue this year depending on where the market is going. But what you can expect from us in the consumer unit is to be agile, take quick decisions and see if they’re working, then we’ll continue. If they’re not working, we’re pulling them. That’s why I’m into this basically every day myself nowadays. And I think this has proven that we get the momentum with the team, and the team is actually executing well. We have more to do. I mean I always say that. I mean, it’s going to take a long time before I feel that I’m 100% satisfied or happy, but definitely, it’s a work to do here, but I’ve seen the good momentum.

Operator: The next question comes from Phil Cusick of JPMorgan.

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