American telecommunications company AT&T felt a sigh of relief following the hike in its Quarter 2 revenues for the year 2021. The period between April and June saw a meteoric rise from the below-par or unsatisfactory returns for the company, ever since the inception of the Covid-19 crisis.
The major reason for this hike in revenue is believed to be the NBA season coming to its culmination. The NBA finals held earlier in the month boosted the interactions and grown massively.
The telecommunication giant racked up a whopping $44 billion in revenues during the 2nd Quarter of 2021. In comparison to the two previous years, the returns were steady and acceptable, considering the major dip because of the ongoing pandemic.
The $44 billion return saw an increase of a massive 7.6 per cent from Quarter 2 in 2020 when the pandemic was at its absolute peak in the US. Although in comparison to 2019, it fell short by 2.2 per cent, the company will believe it’s on the right track of recovery.
AT&T’s media house WarnerMedia, which it acquired in 2016 for $85.4 billion, has the advertising and media rights for the NBA. WarnerMedia through its takeover of cable networks (TNT and TBS), airs the NBA shows and podcasts in the country. The impact of the NBA, majorly because of the finals which saw the Milwaukee Bucks triumph over Phoenix Suns (4-2) in a 7-game series, was the prime catalyst in escalating the company numbers.
Approximately $8.8 billion were raised during the last 3 months by AT&T through WarnerMedia. That’s around 31 per cent of an increase from last year. The advertising revenues also experienced a spike of about 48 per cent, reaching $1.7 billion in revenues. Over the past few months, there have been rumours about AT&T planning to sell its media houses because of the losses it faced during the ongoing pandemic.
As per reports, AT&T had voiced their plans to involve their prime media house WarnerMedia in a $43 billion merger with Discovery. The telecommunication company is also replacing T-Mobile as the Dish Network’s primary network services provider in a deal worth at least $5 billion.
These spin-offs and new joint ventures lined up by AT&T seem interesting on paper but only time will tell how successful they are with the aforementioned deals. The commercial powerhouse will aim to expand on its already strong core and hope to take great strides in the existing market.