After years of ruling the mobile service provider community, AT&T takes a setback with revenues and shares plunging down to almost 60%. The company only posted 400,000 net contract customers versus the 504,000 that Reuters’ experts expected earlier last year. Holiday season did not even support AT&T’s quest to maintain lead against competition.  Giving numerical representation: AT&T dropped to $1.09 billion compared to $2.73 billion set by analysts. This situation might be aggravated by the fact that AT&T already lost the battle of exclusivity over iPhone to Verizon.

Amidst all slumps that AT&T has seen through the last 3 to 4 month, Chairman and CEO Randall Stephenson, still thinks 2010 was a good one for the organization. He said, “We had another strong quarter and a solid year. Our major growth platforms – mobile broadband, U-verse and strategic business services – continue to set the pace for the industry, and we’re still early in the growth cycle for all of these areas. Progress across these growth platforms, combined with continued progress on our cost-improvement initiatives, drive our positive outlook.”

Stephenson continues to be optimistic as he shares the direction for AT&T this year. He told the media, “2011 is the year when we’ll take mobile broadband to the next level.  “We’re seeing 4G speeds today in areas of key markets, we’ve accelerated our LTE deployment plans, and we expect to add 20 4G devices to our lineup this year. AT&T has led the mobile broadband revolution, and we are well positioned to drive the industry’s next waves of innovation and growth.”

Its per share growth is expected be boosted by improvements in both wireless and wireline profit margins, and But, it is not all negative for AT&T as it figures why they got half the 872,000 new contract customers reported by Verizon Wireless, a venture of Verizon Communications and Vodafone Group Plc.