HSBC analyst Sunil Rajgopal upgraded Verizon to Buy and raised its price target to $61 from $54 saying it is one of the preferred ways to play the sector given its strategic position and financial metrics. The analyst said Verizon has solid scale in wireless, narrow exposure to pay TV, low debt, robust ROIC, and good shareholder returns.

Ribbon Communications (RRBN) announced plans for a major network modernization program with Verizon (VZ) to retire legacy TDM switching platforms and replace their function with modern cloud-based technologies. Verizon is leveraging Ribbon's portfolio of Voice Products including the vC20 Call Controller, G5 Line Access Gateway, G6 Universal Media Gateway, virtual and Cloud-native Session Border Controllers, and other products which allows for the consolidation and replacement of equipment with energy efficient, software-centric platforms while maintaining full feature functionality.

Wells Fargo lowered the firm's price target on Verizon to $40 from $44 and keeps an Equal Weight rating on the shares. The firm sees encouraging signs in Q1 - improvement in sub trends and limited churn from price-ups - offset by some softness in the business segment and prepaid. Wells would get more constructive when there's visibility on a sustainable improvement in sub trends.

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Total wireless service revenue of $19.5 billion, a 3.3 percent increase year over year. Retail postpaid phone net losses of 68,000, and retail postpaid net additions of 253,000. Retail postpaid phone churn of 0.89 percent, and retail postpaid churn of 1.15 percent.

Total wireless service revenue growth of 2.0 percent to 3.5 percent. Adjusted EBITDA growth of 1.0 percent to 3.0 percent. Capital expenditures between $17.0 billion and $17.5 billion. Adjusted effective income tax rate1 in the range of 22.5 percent to 24.0 percent.

Reports Q1 revenue $33B, consensus $33.24B.