Verizon Q3 2026: Record Postpaid Adds, Third Straight Guidance Raise, $2B+ AWS AI Deal
VZ sits 17% above its 52-week low of $38.39 on elevated volume (2.2× avg).
Summary
Verizon reported its strongest third-quarter postpaid phone growth in five years and raised full-year guidance for the third straight quarter, with Adjusted EPS now guided to $5.04-$5.06 and free cash flow growth approaching 12%. It also signed a $2.0+ billion AI infrastructure agreement with AWS.
Key Events · Earnings and Guidance · VZ
-
Record Q3 Subscriber Growth
Postpaid phone net additions reached 406,000, a more than 820.0 percent increase year-over-year and the strongest third quarter in five years; postpaid net accounts came in at 137,000, the best in over a decade.
-
Adjusted EBITDA and EPS Records
Consolidated Adjusted EBITDA of $13.8 billion rose 8.0% year-over-year at a 40.2% margin; Adjusted EPS of $1.31 rose 8.3% and reported EPS of $1.25 rose 6.8%.
-
Guidance Raised Third Straight Quarter
Full-year 2026 Adjusted EPS guidance was lifted to $5.04-$5.06 (7.0-7.5% growth) and free cash flow growth to approach 12.0%, with postpaid phone net adds now seen at 1.1-1.2 million.
-
$2B+ AWS AI Infrastructure Deal
An agreement valued at $2.0+ billion with AWS establishes a commercial framework to scale distributed compute for agentic and generative AI workloads.
Analysis · VZ · Technology
For a mature telecom, the metrics that matter were the ones Verizon beat on: 406,000 postpaid phone net adds (up more than 820% year-over-year) and 137,000 postpaid net accounts, its best in over a decade, all while promotional costs fell. That flowed into $13.8 billion of Adjusted EBITDA (up 8.0%, a company record) and $7.8 billion of quarterly free cash flow, up 12.1%. Management raised full-year guidance for the third consecutive quarter — Adjusted EPS to $5.04-$5.06 and free cash flow growth to approach 12.0% — the clearest evidence the turnaround is holding rather than a one-quarter bounce. A $2.0+ billion AWS agreement also gives the fiber build a large AI-infrastructure customer, supporting the capex case. The offset: total revenue grew only 1.5% as equipment revenue fell 9.0% on lower upgrade volumes, and net unsecured debt of $123.7 billion (2.3x Adjusted EBITDA) keeps the balance sheet a constraint on how much further leverage the story can take.
How filings like this one have moved
In the 30 days to Oct 26, 2026, 36.2% of the 898 measured filings Wiseek scored 8 moved their stock by 5% or more by the next session's close. The median move was -0.75%. These are measured outcomes after filings of this importance, not a forecast for this one.
Measured one observation per ticker per day, after exclusions. Current figures: Filing Impact Tracker · open dataset
At the time of this filing, VZ was trading at $45.05 on NYSE in the Technology sector, with a market capitalization of approximately $185.6B. The 52-week trading range was $38.39 to $51.68. This filing was assessed with positive market sentiment and an importance score of 8 out of 10.