AT&T Inc. beat analysts’ estimates for profit in the first quarter as it added more wireless phone customers than expected.

The No. 3 U.S. wireless carrier reported adjusted earnings per share of 55 cents, compared with analysts’ average prediction of 53 cents. Revenue was US$30 billion in the period ended March 31, the company said in a statement Wednesday. That fell short of the $30.5 billion Wall Street was looking for.

Under Chief Executive Officer John Stankey, AT&T has shed media properties and narrowed its focus to its longtime core business of providing communications services, which now include broadband delivered over airwaves and fiber.

The company added 349,000 wireless phone subscribers in the first quarter, beating the 303,539 average estimate of analysts. About 252,000 new customers signed up for AT&T’s fiber service, compared with expectations of 260,000.

AT&T has also deployed a newer wireless home internet technology that sends signals to a device in a home over airwaves rather than a fixed line. The company introduced its version of the service, called called Internet Air, last August, giving it a competitive offering in a market segment where mobile carriers are putting expensive, high-capacity 5G networks to use. Internet Air is available in 95 markets, AT&T said on its website.

The technology used in Internet Air often is called fixed wireless, and has accounted for nearly all of the recent broadband subscriber gains across the industry.

AT&T suffered two notable incidents since it last reported earnings in January: a widespread outage of its wireless network in February, and a security breach disclosed March 30, in which data from about 73 million current and former customers leaked onto the dark web.

The shares were down 1.7 per cent so far this year through the close of trading on Tuesday. Verizon Communications Inc. gained 5.3 per cent over the same period, while T-Mobile US Inc. was up 1.8 per cent.