AT&T's $171 Billion Debt Makes It Hard to Hang On to Customers
- Telecom carrier’s results send shares plunging, bonds gaining
- ‘Top priority’ for 2019 is reducing debt, CEO Stephenson says
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AT&T Inc.’s go-for-broke transition from nation’s largest phone and TV provider to media colossus is off to a rough start.
The TV business, already shrinking at the hands of its fast-growing online competitors, lost enough subscribers to populate Pittsburgh and St. Louis combined in the fourth quarter. And wireless subscriber gains were about 5 percent of what analysts anticipated. The telecom carrier can’t afford to compete on price or outspend Netflix Inc. and other streaming offers because it needs to keep bondholders and dividend dependents happy, so expect it to keep losing market share this year.