AT&T's Day Of Reckoning Is Coming

Summary

• AT&T is due to report financial results for its latest quarter on July 23rd.
• Investors should be particularly interested in the success of HBO Max and the firm's Connected Devices business.
• Other operations also matter, including 5G rollout and the firm's debt picture.
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July 23rd will be a big day for shareholders in telecommunications and entertainment giant AT&T (NYSE:T). Before the market opens on that day, the company is slated to report financial results for the second quarter of its 2020 fiscal year. Though quarterly reports can often be humdrum events, this time around the picture should be a lot more interesting. For starters, this will give us a good idea as to how the firm's newly-launched HBO Max platform is faring. It will also provide a look into what could have been an incredibly volatile quarter for the firm because of the fallout concerning the COVID-19 pandemic.

The question of HBO Max

As we near the time for second quarter results to be made public, one of the biggest questions investors are likely to have is what has become of HBO Max. The service launched on May 27th of this year. That actually came at the tail end, more or less, of AT&T's second quarter, so whatever data we have from management will not represent a full quarter. Only a month and a few days' worth of data will be available unless management elects to provide an update using figures from after the end of the conglomerate's second quarter.

The most important figure, irrespective of which timeframe covered, will be how many subscribers the platform has. Disney+, for instance, was reported by The Walt Disney Company (DIS) to bring in over 50 million paying subscribers in about 5 months following its launch last year. Ultimately, the goal for Disney is to grow its subscription base to between 60 million and 90 million in the next few years. It's probable that the lower end of this range will be hit before the current year is out.

For HBO Max, there's a lot more uncertainty. For

Analyst’s Disclosure:I/we have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.