Telecommunications giant Verizon (NYSE: VZ) beat Wall Street’s revenue expectations in Q4 CY2025, with sales up 2% year on year to $36.38 billion. Its non-GAAP profit of $1.09 per share was 3.3% above analysts’ consensus estimates.

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Company Overview

Formed in 1984 as Bell Atlantic after the breakup of Bell System into seven companies, Verizon (NYSE: VZ) is a telecom giant providing a range of communications and internet services.

Revenue Growth

A company’s long-term sales performance can indicate its overall quality. Even a bad business can shine for one or two quarters, but a top-tier one grows for years. Regrettably, Verizon’s sales grew at a weak 1.5% compounded annual growth rate over the last five years. This fell short of our benchmarks and is a tough starting point for our analysis.

Long-term growth is the most important, but within consumer discretionary, product cycles are short and revenue can be hit-driven due to rapidly changing trends and consumer preferences. Verizon’s annualized revenue growth of 1.6% over the last two years aligns with its five-year trend, suggesting its demand was consistently weak.

This quarter, Verizon reported modest year-on-year revenue growth of 2% but beat Wall Street’s estimates by 0.7%.

Looking ahead, sell-side analysts expect revenue to grow 2.5% over the next 12 months, similar to its two-year rate. This projection is underwhelming and implies its newer products and services will not lead to better top-line performance yet.

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Operating Margin

Verizon’s operating margin might fluctuated slightly over the last 12 months but has generally stayed the same, averaging 21.2% over the last two years. This profitability was lousy for a consumer discretionary business and caused by its suboptimal cost structure.

In Q4, Verizon generated an operating margin profit margin of 13.8%, down 7 percentage points year on year. This contraction shows it was less efficient because its expenses grew faster than its revenue.

Earnings Per Share

Revenue trends explain a company’s historical growth, but the long-term change in earnings per share (EPS) points to the profitability of that growth – for example, a company could inflate its sales through excessive spending on advertising and promotions.

Verizon’s flat EPS over the last five years was below its 1.5% annualized revenue growth. This tells us the company became less profitable on a per-share basis as it expanded.

In Q4, Verizon reported adjusted EPS of $1.09, down from $1.10 in the same quarter last year. Despite falling year on year, this print beat analysts’ estimates by 3.3%. Over the next 12 months, Wall Street expects Verizon’s full-year EPS of $4.71 to grow 1%.

Key Takeaways from Verizon’s Q4 Results

It was good to see Verizon beat analysts’ revenue and EPS expectations this quarter. Zooming out, we think this was a decent quarter. The stock traded up 3.8% to $41.32 immediately following the results.

Big picture, is Verizon a buy here and now? We think that the latest quarter is only one piece of the longer-term business quality puzzle. Quality, when combined with valuation, can help determine if the stock is a buy. We cover that in our actionable full research report which you can read here (it’s free).