CHICAGO – San Antonio-based SBC Communications Inc. posted fourth-quarter earnings of $754 million, or 23 cents a share, down from $905 million, or 27 cents a share from the year-earlier period.
Much of the earnings decline was due to charges related to the acquisition of AT&T Wireless by Cingular, a wireless joint venture of which SBC owns 60 percent. Severance payments and pension costs also contributed to the decline.
SBC said it will cut 7,000 jobs by the end of this year, mostly through attrition.
The job cuts are part of a plan announced last fall to trim 10,000 positions by the end of 2005.
The company employed 162,700 people at the end of 2004, which is a reduction of more than 35,000 from its total in 2001.
SBC’s replacement of copper wires in its network with high-capacity optical fiber is expensive. The purpose is to deliver high-speed data and video, but a secondary benefit is lower maintenance requirements. That will enable SBC to continue reducing staff for years to come, analysts predict.
SBC now offers customers TV service through its partnership with the DISH satellite operation, and later this year will offer some customers video services using its own upgraded network.
Whitacre said he is “very positive about 2005” and SBC’s ability to remake itself into an Internet and TV operation. The company plans to offer Internet telephony to consumers sometime this spring.
For the full year, SBC earnings were $5.6 billion, or $1.79 a share, on revenue of $40.8 billion. That is below its 2003 earnings of $8.5 billion, or $2.56 a share, on revenue of $40.5 billion.
SBC shares closed at $24.58, up 13 cents.
—
(c) 2005, Chicago Tribune.
Visit the Chicago Tribune on the Internet at http://www.chicagotribune.com/
Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.
AP-NY-01-26-05 1858EST
Comments are no longer available on this story