Telecommunications revenue growth of 5.1 percent over the first quarter of 1995 was driven by strong sales of value-added, business and usage services. Sales of services such as PhoneSmart(sm), Voice Messaging and Voice Dialing were up 38 percent over the first quarter of 1995.

ISDN & Private Line Services

The number of ISDN lines in service increased 65 percent to more than 97,000, and sales of private line services, led by NYNEX Enterprise Services, rose for the sixth consecutive quarter, increasing 8.0 percent.

Usage Revenues

Total usage revenues, including wholesale access, retail toll, and local usage, increased 4.1 percent, as access minutes of use increased 11.0 percent and strong sales of optional calling plans continued. During the quarter, NYNEX also successfully implemented intraLATA presubscription in New York.

Access Line Growth

In U.S.A.
Total access lines, including NYNEX's share of unconsolidated ventures, grew 4.9 percent over the first quarter of 1995. Growth included a record-setting 3.6 percent gain in the northeastern United States, where access lines increased by 596,000 to 17.3 million. Business lines accounted for 62.9 percent of this gain, Centrex sales increased 16.9 percent, and residence second lines grew 10.9 percent.

In United Kingdom
NYNEX CableComms access lines grew 132.7 percent, as residence lines and business lines increased to 268,000 and 18,200 respectively.

In Asia
In Asia, where NYNEX is a partner in several wireline joint ventures, TelecomAsia increased the number of lines in service in Bangkok to 753,000, up 73 percent compared to the first quarter of 1995. BayanTel got off to a rapid start in the Philippines, constructing the first 30,000 lines of a 300,000 line project, with 23,000 of them already in service.

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The number of worldwide cellular customers grew dramatically. At Bell Atlantic NYNEX Mobile Communications (BANM), net additions in the quarter of 217,000 customers increased the total number of subscribers to 3.6 million, up 41.9 percent since the first quarter of last year.

In addition, STET Hellas, NYNEX's wireless partnership in Greece, had customer growth of 68.2 percent. Initial testing and construction also began at PrimeCo Personal Communications, NYNEX's partnership with Bell Atlantic, US West and AirTouch, and at Excelcomindo, NYNEX's Indonesian partnership.

As a result of its investments in Indonesia and PrimeCo Personal Communications, NYNEX's proportionate share in cellular partnerships now exceeds 80 million POPs, nearly 60 million more than in the first quarter of 1995.

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Cable television subscriber growth at NYNEX CableComms, NYNEX's United Kingdom subsidiary, was up 62.3 percent over the first quarter of 1995, with the ratio of premium to basic units improving to 202 percent from 148 percent in the first quarter of last year.

Print & Electronic Directories

Growth in information services was also strong. The number of NYNEX Yellow Pages advertisers grew 3.5 percent, including a 21.1 percent increase in international advertisers.

In electronic publishing, NYNEX Information Resources Company (NIRC) launched Big Yellow(sm), the next generation of its national on-line business directory, and immediately doubled usage to more than 200,000 "hits" a day, compared to 10,000 a week when NIRC introduced interactive yellow pages on Prodigy in the first quarter of last year.

The number of NIRC's on-line advertisers increased 60 percent over the first quarter of 1995. Big Yellow will be displayed as a choice on the main navigation bar of Infoseek GuideTM, the Internet's most frequently used search service, which receives 35 million hits per day. NIRC recently announced it has taken a five percent preferred equity position in Infoseek.