BellSouth's Profit Jumps

BellSouth

Thursday reported fourth-quarter profit in line with analysts' consensus estimate, driven by its domestic wireless and Latin America operations.

Net income rose to $787 million, or 43 cents a share, compared with $574 million, or 32 cents a share, a year go, including charges. Without the charges, earnings were 51 cents a share, equaling the Thomson First Call analyst consensus. Revenue rose almost 1% to $5.74 billion.

The Atlanta-based company said it added 126,000 net DSL customers in the quarter, about 25% more than the year-ago quarter, bringing total subscribers to 1.46 million. Cingular added 642,000 net cellular/PCS customers. The company gained 345,000 net customers in Latin America for a total of 9.7 million.

Operating revenue at its Latin America division rose 30.7% to $635 million and 5.7% at its domestic wireless unit in the quarter.

The quarterly results included a charge of 9 cents per share on the sale of its Brazil SP unit.

BellSouth's consolidated revenue and operating expenses do not include its 40% stake in Cingular Wireless, which is in takeover talks with cell-phone rival

AT&T Wireless

(AWE)

.

SBC

(SBC)

owns the rest of Cingular.