Verizon’s net income climbs 12%

Verizon Communications Inc.’s second-quarter earnings rose 12%, the company said Monday, while revenue was slightly shy of expectations and customers disconnected their land lines faster than before.

The nation’s second-largest telecommunications company earned $1.88 billion, or 66 cents a share, in the quarter ended June 30, up from $1.68 billion, or 58 cents, a year earlier.

Verizon said that excluding a merger-related item, it earned 67 cents a share, beating the average estimate of analysts polled by Thomson Financial by 2 cents.

Revenue rose 3.7% to $24.1 billion; Thomson says analysts expected $24.2 billion.

Verizon shares fell 85 cents, or 2.5%, to $33.60.

Verizon lost 11.4% of its residential land lines in the last year, up from a 10.9% decline in the first quarter.

For the first time, Verizon also reported a drop in the number of digital subscriber line customers, as clients moved to its fiber-optic service, FiOS, where it is available. It lost 133,000 such lines while adding 187,000 FiOS Internet customers.

As usual, the company’s strongest results came from the wireless arm, which added 1.5 million subscribers for a total of 68.7 million.