Verizon Communications (VZ) Risk Factor Changes

With approximately 89,900 employees and approximately 179,400 retirees as of December 31, 2025 eligible to participate in Verizon’s benefit plans, the costs of pension benefits and active and retiree healthcare benefi…

Our initiatives aimed at reducing our indebtedness and achieving or maintaining any target leverage ratio may be unsuccessful due to macroeconomic, business and other factors.

•making it more difficult or expensive for us to obtain any necessary future financing for working capital, capital expenditures, debt service requirements, debt refinancing, acquisitions or other purposes;

As of December 31, 2025, Verizon had approximately $131.1 billion of outstanding unsecured indebtedness, $12.0 billion of unused borrowing capacity under our existing revolving credit facility and $27.1 billion of out…

Verizon has a significant amount of debt, which could increase further if we incur additional debt in the future and do not retire existing debt.

property claims, environmental claims, and lawsuits relating to our advertising, sales, billing and collection practices.

•"Open access" – We hold certain wireless licenses that require us to comply with so-called "open access" FCC regulations, which require licensees of particular spectrum to allow customers to use devices and applicati…

•Privacy and data protection – We are subject to local, state, federal and international laws and regulations related to privacy and data protection.

New laws, regulations, executive orders or court decisions, or changes to the existing regulatory framework or enforcement priorities at the federal, state and local or international level, such as those described bel…

The FCC and other federal, state and local agencies regulate our domestic operations, and various foreign governments and international bodies regulate our international operations.

As of December 31, 2025, approximately 27% of our workforce is represented by the Communications Workers of America or the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.

Our suppliers or vendors could fail to provide equipment or service on a timely basis, or fail to meet our performance expectations, for a number of reasons, including, for example, disruption to the global supply cha…

experienced an outage resulting in a widespread disruption of service to our customers.

Cyberattacks may cause equipment failures, loss of information, including sensitive personal information of customers or employees or valuable technical, financial and marketing information.

networks and systems and those of our suppliers, vendors and other service providers, could have an adverse effect on our business.

Unfavorable economic conditions, such as a recession or economic slowdown in the U.S.

Adverse conditions in the U.S.

Finally, we are using and intend to further expand the use of AI in our operations, including in the areas of network deployment and maintenance, customer and employee support services, sales, marketing and administra…

Our industries are rapidly changing as new technologies are developed that offer consumers an array of choices for their communications needs and allow new entrants into the markets we serve.

If we are not able to take advantage of developments in technology and address changing consumer demand on a timely basis, we may experience a decline in the demand for our services, be unable to implement our busines…

reliability, speed, capacity and coverage, our ability to market our products and services effectively, our development of new and enhanced products and services, our capital resources, and the reach and quality of ou…

expenses.

•Climate-related regulation and policy – Due to the nature of our operations, we have been, and expect to continue to be impacted by regulatory developments related to climate change, including, for example, the direc…

•Regulation of broadband internet access services – Verizon offers many different broadband services.

We are subject to risks related to public health crises, which have in the past, and may in the future, have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition and operating results.

Public health crises could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

Natural disasters, extreme weather conditions, acts of war, terrorist or other hostile acts could cause damage to our infrastructure and result in significant disruptions to our operations.

Cyberattacks may cause equipment failures, loss of information, including sensitive personal information of customers or employees or valuable technical, financial and marketing information.

Over the last several years, as a result of the inflationary environment in the U.S., we experienced increases in our direct costs, including electricity and other energy-related costs for our network operations, and…

The deployment of our 5G network is subject to a variety of risks, including those related to equipment availability, unexpected costs, and regulatory matters that could cause deployment delays or network performance…

with the implementation and introduction of these services materially increase, our ability to retain and attract customers could be adversely affected.

Additionally, share repurchases and changes to dividend practices could affect the trading price of our stock and increase volatility.

Although historically we have announced regular cash dividends and annually increased our dividend, future dividend increases and payments are subject to declaration by the Company’s Board of Directors and could vary…

Our share repurchase program does not obligate us to acquire any particular amount of common stock.

In January 2026, we announced that we believed that our strategic plans would provide us with the capacity to return approximately $55 billion to our shareholders, in the form of dividend payments and share repurchase…

There can be no assurance that our current or future share repurchase programs will be fully consummated or that we will continue to increase our dividend.

We are subject to a substantial amount of litigation and claims in arbitration, including, but not limited to, shareholder lawsuits, patent and copyright infringement lawsuits, wage and hour class actions, contract an…

•Conflicting federal, state and international regulations – Certain services could be subject to conflicting regulation by the FCC and/or various federal, state, local and international authorities, which could signif…

•Regulation of broadband internet access services – Verizon offers many different broadband services.

Our systems, networks and operations are subject to potential disruption or failure due to various factors, including power outages, natural disasters, extreme weather conditions, acts of war, or terrorist or other ho…

System failures and disruptions to our networks and operations could prevent us from providing reliable service to customers and adversely affect our business.

We may be unable to achieve the anticipated efficiencies, cost savings and other benefits from our business transformation initiatives.

We have been and will be undertaking various business transformation initiatives intended to reduce costs, drive efficiencies, streamline our operations, enhance customer experience, and improve our competitive position.

Our long-term success depends on our ability to implement business transformation initiatives and achieve their anticipated benefits.

The rapid evolution and increased adoption of artificial intelligence technologies may intensify our cybersecurity risks by increasing the frequency and severity of cyberattacks against us or other companies and by ma…

Cyberattacks, including through the use of ransomware and other forms of malware, distributed denial of services attacks, credential harvesting, social engineering and other means for obtaining unauthorized access to…

During the course of 2025, the U.S.

Our competitors commonly offer aggressive pricing, promotions, premium content options and other incentives – in some cases specifically targeting our customers and putting pressure on our pricing and margins.