Wireless ARPU of AT&T 2016-2020

In the fourth quarter of 2020, AT&T’s ARPU stood at 49.5 U.S. dollars for its postpaid services. ARPU stands for Average Revenue Per Unit and it is the measure used to calculate how much revenue a company generates per unit (or user) during a specific period.

AT&T’s key wireless metrics

In AT&T’s quarterly report, ARPU is defined as wireless subscriber revenues during a specific period divided by average wireless subscribers during that period. Such data can be used by businesses and investors for analysis and comparisons with other companies, giving them a better grasp of what the future holds for a specific company in terms of growth.

In 2019, AT&T had almost 166 million wireless subscribers worldwide. In the third quarter of 2018, the company’s churn rate, which refers to the average percentage of subscribers who stop paying for a service, for these wireless subscribers was about 1.7 percent. This is a relatively low number compared to some of AT&T’s competitors. This is a good indicator of a healthy and loyal relationship between the customer and the company.

AT&T’s competitive environment

Many of the wireless carriers’ ARPU are relatively similar. In the second quarter of 2018, the four largest wireless service providers in the United States (AT&T, Verizon, Wireless, Sprint and T-Mobile) had an average revenue between 40 and 50 U.S. dollars per user. Conversely, the total revenues of these four major wireless providers were not similar in 2019: AT&T had a total revenue of about 181 billion U.S. dollars, which is roughly 50 billion higher than the revenue of top competitor Verizon. In addition, AT&T took the first place as the top wireless carrier in the United States from Verizon in terms of subscriber count in the first quarter of 2018.