Big Red has reported it's Q4 2011 earnings and the numbers are looking very interesting. Verizon added 1.5 million retail customers, which is its largest increase in three years. Of that 1.5 million, 1.2 million were postpaid subscribers. Revenue for the year totaled $110.9 million, up 4% from 2010. You'd think by looking at these numbers that all is well in Verizon land, but a deeper look reveals a very interesting statistic.

A year earlier in Q4 VZW was seeing profit to the tune of $2.64B and this year they are seeing a net loss of $2.02B. Bloomberg attributes this to a pension charge and higher subsidy costs for rising iPhone sales. There is hope that the high subsidy cost will eventually pay off as customers spend on calling and data.

The overall picture for Verizon Wireless is a good one though. The carrier announced a total revenue of $18.3 billion for the quarter, representing a 13 percent year-over-year increase. Data played an obvious role in that picture. In fact, 42% of all revenue for the quarter was made up of the $6.3 billion in data revenue. Those numbers are up 19.2% from the same time last year.

Source: BGR