Verizon Communications (NYSE: VZ), the US’ second largest phone company, reported first quarter profits climbed 9.8 percent as more of its mobile phone customers took to text messaging and surfing on the mobile web. Net income rose to $1.64 billion from $1.5 billion, while sales rose 5.5 percent to $23.8 billion. Revenues at the company’s wireless business rose to $11.7 billion, up 13.2 percent year over year. Serivce revenues were $10.1 billion, an increase of 12.8 percent year over year—which Verizon explicitly said was driven by customer growth and demand for data services. Indeed, data revenues were up 48.9 percent year on year.

Verizon also managed to sign up more subscribers than expected, adding 1.5 million new customers in the quarter—200,000 more than AT&T—giving it a total of 67.2 million customers. Churn was also kept in check standing at 1.19 percent total churn. Churn for post paid customers came in even lower at 0.93 percent. Retail service APRU was up year over year coming in at $51.40, a 1.3 percent year over year increase. Retail data ARPU was up to $11.94—up a heft 33.4 percent year over year (Earnings presentation in PDF).