Verizon (NYSE:VZ) has reported its first quarter earnings for the three months ending March 31st. Revenue for the group increased 6.4 percent year-on-year to $22.6 billion, operating income increased 19.6 percent over the same period to $3.8 billion. Earnings was $1.5 billion.

The company reported 141,000 net customer additions to its FiOS TV service, to a total of 348,000 total FiOS TV customers. Added to the companies 618,000 satellite TV customers Verizon has close to 1 million video customers. Data revenues across all market segments increased 12.2 percent, to $4.2 billion, compared with the first quarter 2006. Verizon’s broadband fiber-to-the-premises network—over which customers receive FiOS Internet and FiOS TV services—passed a total of nearly 6.8 million premises by the end of the first quarter 2007, toward a year-end target of 9 million.

From the conference call: Dennis Strigl, President and COO of Verizon Communications, said in relation to FiOS TV: “We think that the growth that we’ve seen in this quarter is sustainable.” In relation to ARPU, he said: “We expect to see continued growth in the ARPU side through customers buying bigger packages.”

--broadband video revenue grew 46 percent year-on-year, with a 31 percent growth in package subscriptions

--There was a $4.35 increase in consumer ARPU

--On the wireline side of Verizon’s business 34 percent of revenue was from data.

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