The surge in tablet usage helped AT&T report strong wireless revenue for the latest quarter, but profits declined as costs grew quickly.
AT&T Inc., the country's largest telecommunications company, says it earned $3.8 billion, or 71 cents per share, in the April-to-June period, compared with $3.9 billion, or 66 cents share, a year ago.
Adjusted for a one-time gain of 4 cents for the sale of shares in Mexico's America Movil, the latest earnings were 67 cents per share, 1 cent below the average analyst forecast as polled by FactSet.
AT&T's revenue was $32.1 billion, up 1.6 percent from a year ago and well above the average analyst estimate at $31.8 billion.
The Dallas-based company added 550,000 wireless devices to its contract-based plans, most of them tablets.
