Verizon Q3 2010 Results Out: Still Biggest Carrier, But Slower Growth Than AT&T

Verizon has announced its financial numbers for Q3 2010, and with sub-1m additions in subscribers they've only just managed to stay ahead of arch-rival AT&T as holding the biggest subscriber base.  Still, revenue was up 6-percent from the same quarter a year ago, while data revenues were up a whopping 26.3-percent.  Average monthly revenue per user (ARPU), however, was lower than AT&T's customers are spending: $51.99 compared to the GSM carrier's $62.84.

What's consistent for both carriers is that data revenues are playing an increasingly significant role in overall profitability, with Verizon reporting that data accounted for 35.7-percent of all service revenues that quarter.  Text messages are also big business, however, with 183 billion sent or received, while 3.8 billion picture messages were sent.