Telecom stocks are seeing bigger swings, but a clear winner has emerged thus far.
In October 2025, Verizon’s outlook seemed more uncertain than ever. The cell carrier trailed its main competitors in subscriber growth and 5G coverage, and its stock took a major hit after the board of directors abruptly replaced its CEO.
Just a year later, the tables have turned. Verizon shares are up nearly 13% from January 2026, while AT&T is down 2% and T-Mobile has plunged more than 19%.
Typically thought of as defensive investments, the “big three” telecom stocks have become more volatile in recent years due to slowing wireless growth and growing competition from SpaceX’s Starlink and the AI boom. Despite these challenges, Verizon is far outpacing its peers after CEO Dan Schulman pivoted the company to retain customers, cut operating costs, and invest heavily in data center infrastructure.
“I think when Schulman came in, there was probably a big opportunity to cut costs, even without any M&A,” said Matthew Harrigan, a senior analyst covering communications services at StoneX. “The underlying organic entity was just pretty flabby.”
One of Schulman’s foremost goals is to lower Verizon’s postpaid churn rate — the percentage of contracted customers who cancel their subscription plan. Cell carriers report this metric on a monthly basis and consider it a critical measure of projected growth and customer satisfaction.
Before the executive takeover, Verizon’s postpaid churn steadily rose to 1.12% over the course of three years. By the second quarter of 2026, it dropped to 0.84%. At a conference last month, Schulman attributed the rebound to forgoing unnecessary rate hikes on phone plans.
T-Mobile has taken a much different — and more controversial — approach with its customers. In June, the carrier announced a rate plan modernization in which 3G and 4G users would have to migrate to a 5G plan over the summer. But this came at a higher cost, drawing widespread customer backlash that drove up churn and sent shares plunging nearly 15 points in just one week.
Verizon’s low churn factors into Schulman’s plan to cut operating expenses by $5 billion this year. After taking office in 2025, he quickly laid off 13,000 employees, or around 13% of the company’s total workforce. In August, Verizon completed the sale of over 250 of its stores into independent franchises.
Beyond the cash flow generated by cutting costs, Verizon’s dividend yield sits at 6%, well above AT&T’s 4.4% and T-Mobile’s 2.5%. This is a massive draw for Steven Fiorillo, a personal investor and contributor to Seeking Alpha.
“I’ve owned Verizon for years in my income portfolio, and I’ve been adding on weakness because the setup keeps getting better,” wrote Fiorillo on Sept. 10.
Verizon’s data center ambitions are also piquing the interest of investors. In July, the carrier signed a $1 billion deal with Google to provide dark fiber connectivity for its data center buildout. And just last month, Verizon entered a multi-billion, multi-year agreement with tech giant Corning to produce cable fiber for its AI infrastructure.
AT&T and T-Mobile are instead focusing their AI investments internally. AT&T is pouring money into agentic AI, and T-Mobile is incorporating AI technology into its 5G network.
While speculation and optimism have catapulted Verizon shares this year, the past month paints a different picture. Shares fell 8.8% in September and closed at $45.92 on Oct. 2, raising questions about the long-term payoff of Verizon’s AI investments and cost-cutting strategy.
“The stocks are responding to changes in expectations—not simply which carrier is producing the highest growth rate,” wrote Ivan Feinseth, partner and CIO at Tigress Financial Partners, in an email to the Times Square Investment Journal.
In the final months of 2026, those expectations may skew towards T-Mobile. Last quarter, T-Mobile’s service revenue grew more than three times that of Verizon, showing continued momentum amid a broader slowdown in the wireless sector.
Still, for some asset managers, Verizon’s earnings and cash flow present the more appealing growth opportunity. Verizon’s price-to-earnings ratio is 11.9 whereas T-Mobile’s is 17.1, meaning that Verizon generates more earnings per dollar invested.
“We don’t like to buy [stocks] if they’re over 12 times [the company’s] earnings,” said Brent Wilsey, chief investment officer at Wilsey Asset Management, “When Verizon fell, I think we bought around $38 or $39 a share — that’s a price we want to get in at.”
Early this year, Wilsey’s firm purchased $36 million in Verizon shares. He and other investors will accrue profits mainly in the form of dividends for the time being, as the revenue from Verizon’s deals with Corning and Google will not materialize until 2027.
“With the war in Iran [and] interest rates, I think we could be in for some difficulty here,” Wilsey said. “But companies like Verizon should do well because of the fact that people are not going to stop using their cell phones.”