In AT&T’s Q1 earnings call today, the company showed a drop in video customers across AT&T TV, U-Verse, and DirecTV, but growth for HBO Max that exceeded market forecasts. The streaming service added 2.7 million subscribers, ending the quarter with 44.2 million subscribers in total.
Subscriber additions were boosted by same day movie premieres for titles including “Wonder Woman 1984” and “Godzilla vs. Kong” along with the release of “Zack Snyder’s Justice League.”
AT&T CEO John Stankey echoed WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar’s comments from the Investor Day event in a statement, noting again that the AVOD tier of HBO Max is planned for this June.
“We continued to excel in growing customer relationships in our market focus areas of mobility, fiber and HBO Max,” Stankey wrote. “HBO Max continued to deliver strong subscriber and revenue growth in advance of our international and AVOD launches planned for June.”
The ad supported tier will not include same day movie premieres, which will only be available with the $14.99 tier of the streaming service.
This year, WarnerMedia also plans to expand HBO Max to 60 international markets. The expansion will start with 39 territories in Latin America and the Caribbean in June and 21 territories in Europe later in 2021.