Topic: Dividend Stocks

This high dividend stock’s sales and earnings rose in the latest quarter

Verizon Communications Inc., symbol VZ on New York, owns 55% of Verizon Wireless, which is the largest wireless provider in the U.S.; U.K.-based Vodafone plc owns the other 45%. This business has 104 million customers in 50 states, and accounts for 63% of Verizon’s revenue. The remaining 37% comes from its wireline division, which sells local and long-distance telephone service to over 25 million customers in 28 states.

The high dividend stock’s annual payout rate is $1.95 a share, for a yield of 5.2%.

In the three months ended March 31, 2011, Verizon earned $0.51 per share, up 218.8% from $0.16 a year earlier. If you exclude costs related to the spinoff of a subsidiary and other unusual items in the year-earlier quarter, earnings per share would have risen 6.3%. Sales rose just 0.3%, to $27.0 billion from $26.9 billion a year earlier.

Verizon added 1.8 million new wireless customers in the latest quarter. Moreover, 32% of its wireless customers now use smartphones, which can send and receive email and access the Internet. That’s up from 19% a year earlier.

Verizon is just one of the U.S. high dividend stocks we analyze in our Wall Street Stock Forecaster newsletter. You can get the latest issue absolutely FREE when you subscribe now. Click here to learn how.

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