UPDATE: Frontier Communications Q1 Profit Drops 51%

Frontier Communications Corp

reported a 51% decline in its first-quarter earnings. Frontier's quarterly profit fell to $26.8 million, or $0.03 per share, versus $54.7 million, or $0.05 per share, in the year-ago period. Excluding items, Frontier earned $0.05 per share. Its revenue declined 5.8% to $1.27 billion. However, analysts were expecting earnings of $0.06 per share on revenue of $1.26 billion. Frontier's operating margin dropped to 16.4% from 18%. Frontier shares gained 3.08% to $4.01 in pre-market trading.