Verizon is on a roll lately, as they have caught (and trapped for two years) 2.1 million subscribers and set a record for fourth quarter smartphone activations. In fact, they activated 9.8 million smartphones in the course of only three months (6.2 million were iPhones, surprisingly). That’s very impressive, but it does come with some bad news. Despite Verizon doing very well for themselves, they now have a $1.93 billion loss. With Hurricane Sandy and pension charges, they’ve been facing a big loss.

However, their outlook is very positive. Verizon CEO Lower McAdam had this to say:

Verizon seized growth opportunities in the fourth quarter to cap a year of solid progress across the entire business. We delivered a total return of 13.2 percent to shareholders in 2012, and we enter 2013 ready to accelerate the momentum we’ve achieved and create significant shareholder value in the years to come.

The way things are going for Verizon, they’re entitled to that optimism. 2013 is a new year, so let’s see what they can do.

BGR