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Verizon 2Q26 Earnings: Strong Subscriber Growth, Broadband Momentum and Lower Churn Drive Improved Outlook

Jitesh Bhayani — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT

Verizon announced its 2Q26 financial results on July 24, 2026, reporting total operating revenue of $34.3 billion, a 0.7% year-over-year decline. The decline was driven entirely by lower equipment revenue, which fell nearly 20% year over year, reflecting longer device replacement cycles and Verizon's reduced reliance on subsidy-driven customer acquisition. In contrast, mobility and broadband service revenue increased 2.8% to approximately $23.4 billion, while total service revenue and other revenue grew 3.5% to $29.2 billion. The continued shift toward service-led growth and lower equipment dependence reflects Verizon's strategy to improve customer economics and reduce reliance on promotional activity. Supported by strong operational execution and improving customer trends, the company raised its full-year 2026 guidance for the second consecutive quarter.

For 2Q26, Verizon reported adjusted EPS of $1.30, up 6.6% from $1.22 a year earlier. Reported EPS declined to $0.92 and net income fell 22.9% to $3.9 billion, primarily due to approximately $1.8 billion in pre-tax special items, including charges related to the planned divestiture of its international wireline connectivity and managed network services business, asset rationalization initiatives, and workforce restructuring. Excluding these items, underlying performance remained strong, with adjusted EBITDA increasing 7.2% to a record $13.7 billion and adjusted EBITDA margin expanding to a record 40.1%. IDC views the divergence between reported and adjusted results as a reflection of strategic portfolio optimization rather than any weakening in core operating performance.

Cash generation remained strong in 2Q26, with cash flow from operations increasing 16.3% YoY to $10.4 billion and free cash flow rising 24.4% to $6.4 billion. First-half cash flow from operations reached $18.4 billion, up 9.9%, while free cash flow increased 16.0% to $10.2 billion. The stronger cash flow profile supported continued network investment, ongoing debt reduction, and shareholder returns. Verizon also expanded its full-year share repurchase target to up to $4.5 billion, reflecting confidence in the sustainability of its cash generation.

Reflecting strong first-half execution and improving operating trends, Verizon raised its full-year 2026 guidance for a second consecutive quarter. The company now expects mobility and broadband service revenue growth of 2.5%–3.0%, with growth accelerating through the second half of the year. Adjusted EPS guidance was increased to $4.99–$5.04, up from $4.95–$4.99 in 1Q26. Verizon also raised its outlook for cash flow from operations and free cash flow while reaffirming capital spending of $16.0–$16.5 billion. Operationally, the company continues to expect retail postpaid phone net additions in the upper half of its 750,000–1.0 million range, reinforcing management's confidence in sustained subscriber and service-revenue momentum.

AT&T 2Q26 Results: Accelerating Growth, Record Convergence, and Capital Discipline

Jitesh Bhayani — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT

AT&T reported second-quarter 2026 consolidated revenue of $31.6 billion, up 2.3% year over year (YoY); adjusted EPS of $0.65, up 20.4%; and adjusted EBITDA of $12.3 billion, up 5.2%, for an adjusted EBITDA margin of 39.1%. The company added more than 1 million Advanced Connectivity customers across fiber, fixed wireless, and postpaid phone in a record quarter for combined fiber and fixed wireless net adds and accelerated its planned 2026 share repurchases to approximately $10 billion.

Market Forecast: Worldwide Creative Applications Forecast, 2026–2030

Roger Beharry Lall — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC presentation provides revenue projections by deployment model and geography through 2030. The worldwide creative applications market is projected to reach $39.1 billion by 2030, expanding from $22.0 billion in 2025, at a compound annual growth rate of approximately 12.2%. Generative AI, content supply chain modernization, and the growing requirement for machine-readable content are among the structural forces driving that trajectory.

“Nearly $40.0 billion by 2030 reflects something more fundamental than a software adoption curve. Creative work is being rebuilt around AI, and organizations investing in governed, connected content infrastructure today are laying the foundation for a real competitive advantage in the future.” — Roger Beharry Lall, research director, Advertising Technologies and SMB Marketing Applications

Market Share: Worldwide Creative Applications Shares, 2025

Roger Beharry Lall — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC presentation provides a detailed breakdown of vendor revenue, share, and growth across the creative applications market in 2025. The worldwide creative applications market reached $22.0 billion in 2025, growing 17.2% as generative AI accelerated content production economics and expanded the buyer base well beyond traditional creative departments. The market remains highly concentrated at the top, yet competitive dynamics below that tier are shifting, with several challengers posting growth rates well above the market average on the strength of accessible, AI-native platforms.

“Generative AI is restructuring the underlying economics of content production in this market, and today’s share rankings still reflect yesterday’s workflows. Established vendors have earned their positions and are not going anywhere, but the next wave of growth will be contested at the margins by a new generation of vendors rewriting the rules of creative production.” — Roger Beharry Lall, research director, Advertising Technologies and SMB Marketing Applications, IDC

European Telcos’ ICT Offering to SMB: Cybersecurity and Cloud Collaboration at the Core

Daniela Rao — Mon, 20 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Perspective focuses on European telcos’ cybersecurity and cloud collaboration propositions for SMBs as the most relevant components of their IT services portfolio, alongside connectivity and device offerings.

“Telcos’ success in the SMB market depends on their ability to shift from complex, fragmented tools to automated and managed capabilities delivered as an invisible, native communication service, together with support services helping them assess their digital needs and adopt the most suitable solution,” said Daniela Rao, senior research and consulting director, IDC Telecom and UC Global Team.

Market Forecast: U.S. SMB Communications Services Forecast, 2026–2030

Daniela Rao — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC presentation analyzes and forecasts the revenue for the U.S. small and medium-sized business (SMB) communications services market. The presentation provides IDC's definitions of SMB and telecom voice and data categories, and it presents a detailed forecast, beginning in 2025 and extending through 2030.

"Small and medium-sized businesses understand the necessity to invest in technologies and services that address their operational challenges, but they will continue to have limited resources. Telcos targeting SMBs should design new value-creating propositions rooted in their networks, ecosystems, AI, and analytics capabilities to address the pricing challenges with services geared to remove friction between SMBs' daily operations and digital transformation road map." — Daniela Rao, senior research and consulting director, Worldwide Telecom and UC, IDC

Market Share: U.S. SMB Wireline Voice and Data Shares, 2025

Daniela Rao — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC presentation provides vendor market shares for the U.S. small and medium-sized business (SMB) wireline voice and data market for 2025.

Small and medium-sized businesses are increasingly recognizing the need to invest in connectivity to improve operations and strengthen their customer engagement. However, since SMB customers have needs that vary significantly by industry, size, and region, it will remain challenging for telco to reach and retain them with standardized offerings at competitive, affordable prices. In addition, SMBs need personalized support and training because they lack internal skills or resources to identify and implement digital services and solutions to achieve their desired outcomes in terms of efficiency, productivity, and customer experience. Telcos understand that attracting and retaining SMB customers requires redesigning their portfolios to better meet SMBs' demand for simplicity, cost-effectiveness, and ease of use: convergent packages better oriented to these requirements will be the next telco battleground to successfully address this market.

“Small and medium-sized businesses are increasingly recognizing the importance of investing in connectivity to improve operations and strengthen their customer engagement. However, since SMB customers have needs that vary significantly by industry, size, and region, it will remain challenging for telco to reach and retain them with standardized offerings at competitive and affordable prices." — Daniela Rao, senior research and consulting director, Worldwide Telecom and UC

SAP Sapphire 2026: How SAP Is Bringing the Autonomous Enterprise to Small and Midmarket Buyers

Katie Evans, Tony Olvet — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Market Note shares key SMB insights and announcements from SAP’s flagship event, Sapphire, held May 11–13, 2026, in Orlando, Florida. While the event has traditionally catered to larger enterprises, this year’s conference illustrated the major ERP vendor’s refocused efforts to capture more of the small- and midsize tech buyer market.

“The GROW with SAP AI offerings unveiled at SAP Sapphire make clear that capabilities once considered out of reach for SMBs are now quickly becoming achievable,” says Katie Evans, Senior Director, Worldwide Small and Medium Business Markets, IDC.

IDC Survey: SMB-Focused Partners in EMEA — Business Models, Customer Demand, and Implications for Partner Strategy

Stuart Wilson, Andreas Storz — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Survey examines SMB-focused partners in EMEA and the SMB customers they serve, using data from IDC’s 2025 EMEA Partner Survey and 2026 Worldwide SMB Survey. It explores how SMB-focused partners build and monetize multimodel, services-led business models within vendor-driven ecosystems.

The analysis connects partner behavior to SMB customer priorities around growth, efficiency, and cost control, and examines how these shape demand for technology and services. Taking an ecosystem view, the report highlights how vendor programs, platforms, and engagement models directly influence how SMB-focused partners go to market and deliver value.

Salesforce Connections 2026: Short-Term ROI on Marketing AI to Drive Long-Term Transformation

Gerry Murray, Heather Hershey, Douglas Hayward, Roger Beharry Lall, Tapan Patel — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 04:00:00 GMT

This IDC Perspective summarizes Salesforce Connections 2026 and its implications for CMOs and marketing technology buyers. The document covers Salesforce's Agentforce Marketing and Commerce announcements, including the pipeline generation agents Piper and Hunter, the Contentful acquisition, the Agentforce Marketing Goals Agent, and Headless 360 MCP campaign management capabilities.

"The road to scaling agentic marketing is ultimately an organizational, process, and technological transformation proposition, each step of which will have to pay its way," says Gerry Murray, research director, Enterprise Marketing Apps and Agents, IDC. "By forming its go-to-market strategy on this principle, Salesforce aligns itself with CMO agendas and CFO requirements for funding enterprise-scale investments, which expands account TAM and accelerates Salesforce's ability to capture share of the agentic infrastructure spend."