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Stephenson, speaking at the UBS global, media and
communications conference, said the service achieved its
subscriber forecast for December on launch day, Nov. 30 and is
"doing very, very well."
He did not provide subscriber numbers.
DirecTV Now, which streams live television content to
internet-connected devices, was launched to help drive sales in
a saturated cell phone market.
AT&T acquired DirecTV for $48.5 billion last year, making it the
largest U.S. pay-TV operator with 25.3 million video
subscribers, in a push to diversify into the media and
entertainment business.
AT&T also plans to buy Time Warner Inc <TWX.N> for $85.4 billion
to gain control of premium content from networks such as HBO.
The wireless company is working on gaining regulatory approval
for its Time Warner deal.
AT&T expects the regulatory review process to be "fairly
straightforward," Stephenson said.
"This is a classic vertical merger and the day after we close
this deal there will be no fewer competitors in any market in
the United States than there are today in distribution or media
and entertainment," Stephenson said. "This is a pretty clean
deal."
Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes, who spoke at a separate session of
the UBS conference on Tuesday, said the AT&T-Time Warner deal
should close by the end of 2017, if not sooner.
Before winning the U.S. presidential election, Donald Trump had
said on the campaign trail that the acquisition of Time Warner
by AT&T would put too much power in the hands of one company.
"I don't know what part of it he was referring to," Stephenson
said while speaking at the Business Insider IGNITION conference.
He said he had heard a "rumor" that Trump's comments were
perhaps connected to the president-elect's criticism of Time
Warner's CNN channel.
From the perspective of the telecom industry, the shift to a
Trump administration is a positive development, as the
president-elect's policies seem to promote corporate investment
and capital allocation, he said.
(Reporting by Malathi Nayak and Tim BaySinger in New York;
Writing by Anna Driver; Editing by W Simon and Bill Trott)
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