Verizon Communications Inc.

Good morning and welcome to the Verizon second quarter 2023 earnings conference call. At this time all participants have been placed in a listen only mode and the floor will be open for questions following the presentation. To ask a question press star 1 on your touch tone phone. If at any point your question has been answered you may remove yourself by pressing star 2. Today's conference is being recorded. If you have any objections you may disconnect at this time. It is now my pleasure to turn the call over to your host, Mr. Brady Conner, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations.

Thanks, Brad. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our second quarter earnings conference call. I'm Brady Conner, and I'm joined by our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Hans Vestberg, as well as our Chief Financial Officer, Tony Skiadis. Before we begin, I'd like to draw your attention to our safe harbor statement, which can be found on slide two of the presentation. Information in this presentation contains statements about expected future events and financial results that are forward-looking and subject to risks and uncertainties. Discussions of factors that may affect future results is contained in Verizon's filings with the SEC, which are available on our website. This presentation contains certain non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations of these non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures are included in the financial materials posted on our website. Earlier this morning, we posted to our investor relations website a detailed review of our second quarter results. You will find additional detail in the earnings materials on our investor relations website. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Hans.

Thank you, Brady, and good morning, everyone, and welcome to our second quarter earnings call. Me and my team are pleased to report another solid quarter as we continue to advance across all of our strategic key performance indicators. Our newly appointed leadership team remains committed to delivering on our key metrics. Growth on wireless service revenue and expansion on consolidated adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow. We're seeing operational improvements throughout our business and our results are strong. Wireless service revenue was up 3.8% year-over-year and adjusted EBITDA was $12 billion for the quarter. Cash flow from operation was very strong in the quarter at $9.7 billion, and free cash flow was $5.6 billion. The actions we are taking to accelerate growth, improve operations, and ensure a solid balance sheet are working. Our results today illustrate our ability to adapt, innovate and excel even in times of economic uncertainty and we're encouraged by the growing importance of mobility, broadband and cloud services in the 5G era in all customer segments. Based on our results this quarter and what we see ahead, I'm confident that we will deliver on our 2023 financial guidance. This is a testament to the hard work and the dedication of our team. Now, let's look more closely at the performance in mobility, private networks and national broadband. Our consumer wireless strategy of segmentation and financial discipline is paying off. This quarter, we saw a year-over-year growth in postpaid phone growth ads, significantly lower promo upgrade levels, and a sequential improvement in postpaid churn, all according to our strategy. This work is a continuous process, and we're always looking for ways to do better. In May, we launched MyPlan, a first-of-its-kind customized offering that gives our customers the value, control, and simplicity they want. This aligns with our strategy of bringing our customers the best value on America's best network. While we still are in early days, my plan has already helped our Verizon consumer group deliver notable operational improvements by encouraging customers to take on premium plans, which is driving higher ARPA. We're really excited for what's to come from our new platform for selling consumer wireless services, and we're constantly evolving our offerings to fit customers' needs. We will also continue to invest in prepaid to improve performance and expect sequential improvements in the second half of the year. As we reported in previous quarters, customer payments remain healthy. which shows both the financial strength of our customer base and the high value they place on our services. Our ongoing and effective strategy execution by Sampath and the consumer team supports a stronger Verizon, where we are the premium provider with elements like the new My Plan, strategic regionalization, persistent cost transformation, and a reinforced focus on customer satisfaction. We are strengthening our operational blueprint with a local emphasis and effectively positioning ourselves for sustainable growth. Verizon Business Group had yet another strong quarter driven by continued solid phone and fixed wireless access performance, even as the secular decline in wireless continues. For the eighth quarter in a row, Verizon Business contributed more than 125,000 postpaid phone net ads. demonstrating the resiliency of our service offering to all types of businesses and the value of our world-class network. On private networks, we've won a mandate from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, and we recently completed work to launch a next-generation private networking solution at the Cleveland Clinic that will support their mission for years to come. As a trusted partner to enterprise businesses and federal government, we work closely to transform the networks and bring organizations onto the leading edge of technology development. The total addressable market of private wireless is expected to grow significantly, and Verizon is well positioned to capture meaningful share. Our broadband strategy delivered more than 400,000 net ads in the quarter on Fios and Fixed Wireless Access, marking another quarter of remarkable broadband performance. This represents the third consecutive quarter with more than 400,000 net ads, demonstrating the momentum of our growth trajectory. We have established a high pace of customer growth. It's clear Fixed Wireless Access is here to stay as a proven competitive broadband product. We're well on track to meet our target of 4 to 5 million fixed wireless access subscribers by the end of 2025, from a current base of nearly 2.3 million subscribers. We also now have an opportunity to segment the fixed wireless access market based on price and speed tiers, so that our customers can choose the service that best suits them. Further, we continue to see net promoter scores of Fios and Fixed Wireless Access that significantly exceed those of traditional cable offerings. We have the best network in the market, and in the next couple of quarters, we will extend our lead with the last tranche of the C-band spectrum. For the 31st time in a row, Verizon was the most awarded brand for wireless network quality in J.D. Power's U.S. Wireless Network Quality Study. No other wireless provider has achieved this, and for 2013, we received top scores among all J.D. Power study factors in all six regions. Additionally, our team continues to innovate within our network, upgrading our infrastructure around the country, and successfully testing our ability to slice our 5G network. Slicing will allow us to serve customers with dedicated 5G service on a large scale and to meet the diverse needs of the largest base of wireless customers in the United States. Next, I want to address the recent news about the legacy LED cable in our network. We take this matter seriously. And to be very clear, LED infrastructure makes up a small percentage of our copper network. and we began facing away from installing new lead cable by the 1950s. At Verizon, the communities we serve and our employees are at the heart of everything we do and we're using a fact and science-based approach in our assessment. You'll hear more on the topic from Tony later on. Our accelerated plans for efficiency with our new structure, which we put in place over the last couple of quarters, are already paying off. Verizon Global Services has taken action on a number of opportunities company-wide, realizing significant savings by focusing on IT platform transformation, leveraging artificial intelligence, rationalizing our real estate portfolio, and improving our supply chains. We're on track to achieve our forecasted $2-3 billion in annual savings by 2025. These savings, in combination with the completion of the $10 billion CBAN spend, position us to generate strong cash flow and continue to invest in our business and pursue dividend increases as we execute on our capital allocation strategy. Now, I will turn the call over to Tony to discuss our operations and financial performance in more detail.