- Newly installed CEO Dan Schulman said Verizon will be more customer-focused
- Q3 results were lackluster, with consumer postpaid losses and slower-than-expected FWA growth
- Analysts question how Verizon can regain momentum without resorting to price cuts or aggressive promotions
Verizon’s Q3 2025 was kind of a mixed bag – not as bad as some expected after former CEO Hans Vestberg was abruptly fired a few days after the quarter closed. But Verizon’s Q3 results still trended in the wrong direction, signaling it was time for a regime change.
Today, newly installed CEO Dan Schulman laid out plans to reclaim Verizon’s glory days, reduce churn and “delight” customers.
Just how is he going to do that? That’s not entirely clear. Schulman talked broadly about cutting costs, divesting unprofitable parts of Verizon’s business and making Verizon a scrappier company. But as for the nitty-gritty details, he wasn’t ready to go there.
Of course, Schulman, who took the reins a few weeks ago, needs time to devise his plan – and he obviously isn’t going to share too many details that will tip off his rivals.
Instead, Schulman sketched how he intends to get Verizon in a position where it’s making customers happy – he used the word “delight” 14 times during the earnings call – as well as make it a leaner and “scrappier” business.
He stressed that Verizon needs to and will be putting the customers first, which makes sense given the Project 624 that Verizon Consumer CEO Sowmyanarayn Sampath laid out in June. Schulman didn’t refer to that plan specifically but said Verizon will shift to a “customer first” focus.
“Verizon is at a critical inflection point. For years, our priority was clear: build the best and most reliable network,” he said. “With that foundation firmly in place, our next chapter is about serving and delighting customers by building the industry's best overall value proposition and the best customer experience.”
“Verizon will no longer be the hunting ground for competitors looking to gain share,” Schulman said. “We are reinventing how we operate to make Verizon more agile and efficient.”
Medium metrics
Schulman was installed a few days after the close of the third quarter, which led some analysts to believe the numbers must have been much worse than expected. The numbers revealed today weren’t great, but they weren’t the worst, either. (That said, MoffettNathanson’s Craig Moffett told investors that Verizon’s results were, in a word: bad – from ARPU growth to churn.)
Verizon’s consumer segment lost 7,000 wireless postpaid phone customers in Q3 while the business division reported 51,000 postpaid phone net additions, giving the company a combined total of 44,000 postpaid phone net additions. Total service revenue was $28.20 billion, which was lower than consensus analysts expected.
In fixed wireless access (FWA), Verizon added 261,000 customers, but that, too, was lower than analysts expected. FiOS added 61,000 customers.
Last week, AT&T reported 405,000 net postpaid phone customers in the third quarter and net income of $9.7 billion. Meanwhile, T-Mobile’s blockbuster Q3 results included 1 million new postpaid phone customers, 506,000 fixed wireless access (FWA) subscribers and fiber net customer additions of 54,000.
Analysts’ take on Verizon
Schulman indicated he doesn’t want to grow subscribers by resorting to promotional activity that’s easily copied by competitors. But several analysts questioned how Verizon is going to improve its financial position without lowering prices or staging aggressive promotions.
“Price increases have been the primary revenue growth lever and promos have driven gross adds, so taking both off the table raises real questions about how churn reduction alone gets Verizon to its new subscriber growth aspiration,” wrote LightShed Partners analysts Walter Piecyk and Joe Galone in a blog post today.
“The lack of any detailed plan leaves the industry guessing what 'rational' competition actually means for Dan Schulman. The Schulman Effect remains as we await the Schulman Reality,” the LightShed analysts said.
Moffett said it’s still unknown “why” exactly Vestberg was so abruptly replaced as CEO. However, “it is not hard to imagine that the board was troubled by the leading indicators in Verizon’s wireless business,” he said.
“Verizon is no longer perceived to have the best network,” Moffett said. “And it is perceived to have the highest prices. [Shulman’s] promise to reverse subscriber losses without relying on promotions and price strikes us as more of a wish than a strategy.”
Where does it go from here?
Long-time industry analyst Roger Entner of Recon Analytics doesn’t rule anything out when it comes to Schulman’s agenda, including potentially sizable job cuts.
“When you read through the lines, there will be painful cuts,” he said. Where? “Everywhere. I think everything is under the microscope.”
But everyone recognizes this “new Verizon” isn’t going to happen overnight. “They need to add half a million net adds, give or take, and they can’t give away the farm,” Entner said. “That’s a tough one.”
Schulman said he’ll share more details in early 2026, but the market will likely see evidence of its more competitive nature beginning this quarter.
He cautioned it will take time. “When you want to redefine the culture [and] financial profile of a large company like Verizon, we need to do it in a very thoughtful, prudent manner,” he said. “We're going to be a much scrappier company than we've been before. We have a lot to do.”