Verizon raised its forecasts for 2026 on Monday, riding a strong quarter for new phone customers, and announced a deal worth more than $2 billion with Amazon Web Services to support artificial intelligence workloads. Investors responded well. Verizon shares rose 2.4% before the market opened.
What is the Verizon and AWS AI deal?
Under the AWS agreement, Verizon will provide high-capacity network connections and help add computing power spread across many sites. The deal is aimed at generative and agentic AI, the kind of systems that can carry out tasks on their own. It follows a Verizon agreement struck in July, worth more than $1 billion, to connect Google’s data centers over unused fiber.
The carrier’s subscriber numbers were the standout. In the three months to September, Verizon added 406,000 postpaid phone subscribers, meaning customers who pay a bill each month. Analysts had expected about 209,000, according to Reuters, which cited data from Visible Alpha.
Did Verizon raise its 2026 forecast?
That strength led Verizon to lift its outlook. The company now expects 1.1 million to 1.2 million new postpaid phone customers this year. Before Monday, it had aimed for the top half of a range from 750,000 to 1 million.
Verizon also raised its adjusted earnings forecast to $5.04 to $5.06 a share and now expects free cash flow to grow by almost 12%. The company kept its plan to spend $16 billion to $16.5 billion on its network and other assets this year.
Why did Verizon's revenue miss analyst expectations?
Revenue was the weak spot. It rose 1.5% to $34.3 billion, falling short of the $34.74 billion analysts expected, according to LSEG data cited by Reuters. Reuters reported that fewer customers upgraded their phones after Verizon cut device discounts.
Profit, however, came in stronger than the top line. Net income rose 5.2% to $5.3 billion. Adjusted earnings per share grew 8.3% to $1.31, and free cash flow climbed 12.1% to $7.8 billion.
Chief Executive Dan Schulman framed the results as an early stage of a longer push. “We are continuing to raise the bar, and we are only one year into a multi-year growth story,” he said.
Schulman has restructured the company since taking over about a year ago. In June, Verizon launched simpler phone plans with clearer pricing, a change aimed at making its offerings easier for customers to compare.
The AWS deal is part of a broader pattern. Demand for computing capacity has driven other large AI data center deals this year, and telecom companies with extensive fiber and network assets have become a natural source of that capacity. Verizon’s agreements with AWS and Google put it squarely in that market, while its core business of selling phone service continues to carry the company’s near-term growth.
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