AT&T Inc. crushed subscriber expectations in its first quarter, while saying Wednesday that it plans to restart buybacks sooner than expected.
Wireless investors got a bit nervous in March when AT&T T and Verizon Communications Inc. VZ warned of soft postpaid subscriber trends early in the year. But AT&T’s earnings report Wednesday morning showed that the January weakness was a blip, as the company went on to post 324,000 postpaid phone net additions for the first quarter. Analysts tracked by FactSet were modeling 255,000.