DirecTV earnings fall short of expectations

DirecTV reported a first-quarter profit of $730 million, helped by the addition of 279,000 net new subscribers.

The El Segundo company said it had a profit of $1.44 per share.

The results fell short of Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of $1.52 per share.

The provider of satellite TV services posted revenue of $8.14 billion in the period, also missing analyst forecasts for $8.16 billion.

Last spring, AT&T Inc. agreed to buy DirecTV for $48.5 billion in a deal it hopes to complete by the end of June.

DirecTV said it added 60,000 net subscribers in the U.S. market during the quarter, or 48,000 more than it added in last year’s first quarter. Total enrollment in its largest market climbed about 1% to 20.4 million.