Verizon, one of the three largest U.S. phone carriers, had a challenging year in 2025 as troubling consumer trends continued to hurt its business. Amid its latest woes, the company’s new CEO is doubling down on major changes to keep customers happy and reduce the risk of them switching to competitors.
Verizon revealed in its latest earnings report that it added 616,000 new postpaid phone customers in the fourth quarter of 2025, which is the highest number of new postpaid phone customers in the past six years.
However, the company’s postpaid phone churn rate, or the number of customers who discontinued service, hit 0.95%, 7 basis points higher than the churn rate reported in the same quarter of 2024. The company’s operating income also fell 32.6% year over year.
Verizon made several bold pricing changes early last year that sparked a backlash from customers and led to increased churn.
Last February, for example, the company raised monthly fees for its myPlan and New Verizon Plan accounts by $3 to $5, citing “increased operating costs.”
The following month, it increased the monthly price of its Verizon Mobile Protect Multi-Device plan and Verizon Mobile Secure Multi-Device plan by $8. By August, Verizon’s device activation fee rose from $35 to $40, and the company announced it was discontinuing loyalty discounts.
Then, in September, the company raised tablet plan prices by $5 to $10 and raised two key charges on customers’ monthly bills.
Verizon named Dan Schulman chief executive in October, replacing Hans Vestberg, as customer backlash over price increases and churn continued to climb.
Shortly after taking the job, Schulman made it loud and clear on an earnings call that month that he didn’t like the company’s price increases and vowed to “aggressively transform” the company to “build loyalty and significantly improve retention.”
He later laid off 13,000 employees to “simplify” company operations and better “address the complexity and friction that was frustrating customers,” according to an internal memo sent to employees.
As customer churn continues to rise, Schulman is doubling down on his efforts to transform the company, claiming during a Jan. 30 earnings call that Verizon is “driving a customer-centric culture deeper into the organization.”
“There is no question that Verizon is at a critical inflection point, and there is no question that we must fundamentally transform our culture to delight customers and build a brand that stands for trust so we can deliver for our shareholders,” Schulman said.
Verizon Chief Financial Officer Anthony Skiadas said on the call that the company’s postpaid phone churn rate increased in the fourth quarter “primarily due to previous pricing actions and competition.”
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Schulman noted that Verizon’s churn rate in this area has increased 25 basis points over the past three years, resulting in the loss of 2.25 million customers.
“People leave us for four reasons,” Schulman said. “It’s a price increase without commensurate value. It’s just going to piss off some customers and we’ve seen churn go up because of it and we’ve stopped doing that and we’re going to start adding value to it.”
“The second is friction in the process, whether it’s onboarding or billing,” he continued. “When they call our customer service, it needs to be flawless, we need to reduce complexity, we need to fix that. We’ve taken steps to address every issue. And then there’s price perception and competitive intensity.”
Verizon does face stiff competition from rival phone carriers such as AT&T and T-Mobile, which are ramping up deals to attract new customers. Cable giants such as Comcast and Spectrum have also been trying to attract new phone customers with promotions that bundle phone, Internet and TV services.
To keep customers away from competitors, Verizon has invested heavily in artificial intelligence to help eliminate customer pain points and streamline its services.
“We are determined to become an AI-first company, deploying AI at scale,” Schulman said. “We will leverage AI to optimize our operations and fundamentally reshape the customer experience. We leverage AI to streamline offers, personalize interactions, and reduce churn through smart, consistent marketing. By using predictive models, we can predict customer pain points before they occur, allowing us to proactively address issues.”
His comments come after Verizon began using artificial intelligence last summer to improve its customer service. The company is also reportedly using artificial intelligence to scan bills from rival phone carriers to provide customers with customized offers.
In addition to AI, Verizon is also banking on convergence opportunities, such as offering bundled phone and internet service deals to customers, to reduce churn. The move comes after Verizon last month completed its $20 billion acquisition of Frontier Communications, a move the phone carrier hopes will speed up the delivery of wireless and Internet services to existing and new customers.
“First and foremost, obviously critical to our Fusion’s future is completing the acquisition of Frontier,” Schulman said. “We now have over 30 million fiber channels and have tremendous cross-sell opportunities as our wireless services are significantly under-penetrated in leading edge markets.”
Verizon expects to welcome 750,000 to 1 million postpaid phone customers this year as it doubles down on its turnaround plan.
To achieve this goal and retain customers, Schulman emphasized that companies must focus on rebuilding trust. However, that doesn’t mean customers won’t see price increases in the future.
“The first thing is to stop doing things that customers hate,” Schulman said. “It’s not rocket science. Again, solving the end-to-end experience is not rocket science, but it’s hard to do. And then you start to regain trust. When you start to regain trust, you can start to make commitments or add value in it.
“I’m not saying we won’t raise prices, but I’m saying we won’t raise prices without value,” he added. “But I do think there are a lot of places where we can add value.”
Verizon has increased its focus on keeping customers happy after it suffered a severe service outage last month that left millions of customers in multiple states without phone service for about 10 hours, sparking widespread outrage.
So it’s crucial for the company to focus on pleasing customers, especially since a JD Power survey last year found that Verizon trailed T-Mobile and MVNOs in postpaid phone plan satisfaction.
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this Average consumer satisfaction score Postpaid plans for legacy carriers are Chapter 593 (Out of 1,000 points).
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T-Mobile Ranking highest The satisfaction score is Chapter 636.
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Verizon ranks second Chapter 583 Fraction.
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AT&T traces behind Verizon’s satisfaction score is Chapter 573.
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virtual network operatorHowever, the average satisfaction score is Chapter 641.
Source: JD Power
“The survey results show that value is the most important driver of the overall experience, followed by service quality,” Carl Lepper, senior director of technology, media and telecommunications at JD Power, said in a press release.
Following Verizon’s latest earnings report, some analysts said the company’s increasing focus on growing its customer base could hurt its future revenue.
“Verizon’s fourth-quarter (Q4 2025) results and guidance set the stage for Verizon to take a more aggressive stance on subscriber growth, potentially at the expense of ARPU (average revenue per user) dilution,” Citi analyst Michael Rollins said in a report seen by Investor’s Business Daily.
He continued: “While Verizon is also investing in delighting customers and improving retention, fourth-quarter results showed a pickup in subscriber growth and slower year-over-year service revenue growth of just 1.1%.”
Another concern among analysts is that Verizon could spark a price war with its rivals as it redoubles its efforts to attract customers. New Street Research analyst David Barden said in an analyst note that Verizon is proceeding cautiously to prevent this from happening.
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“As we’ve said in the past, Verizon has the best homes in the neighborhood and they know a price war will burn this neighborhood down,” Baden said. “We believe that if they can get about 200-300 million postpaid phone network additions from AT&T and T-Mobile respectively, it won’t be materially damaging to these companies while also meeting Verizon’s near-term goals.”
While many analysts are predicting Verizon’s future performance under Schulman, industry analyst Jeff Kagan said in a press release that the company’s latest earnings report does not reflect its growth in the coming years.
“Verizon hasn’t shown strength in a while, and investors are understandably eager to see progress,” Kagan said.
“We need to give him (Schulman) the time and space he needs to build momentum and get the boat moving in the right direction again,” he added.
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This article was originally published by TheStreet on February 2, 2026, and first appeared in the Retail section. Click here to add TheStreet as your preferred source.