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Verizon ( VZ ) shares dropped Tuesday after the company warned it could see soft subscriber growth after a "challenging" quarter.

New subscribers this quarter “are probably going to be soft,” Chief Revenue Officer Frank Boulben said at a Deutsche Bank conference Tuesday, pointing to growing competition and the impact of price increases. Gross new additions in the first quarter are expected to be flat or down from a year earlier, according to a regulatory filing.

In January, Verizon had raised prices on customers with five or more phone lines and those on an older plan it no longer offers, according to a report from CNET. It also increased an administrative fee by 20 cents on all plans in December, the report said. A price increase on Verizon’s multi-device protection plan is scheduled to go into effect later this month.

Customers are also waiting longer now than in previous years to upgrade their devices, Boulben said, with the average customer keeping their devices for more than 41 months.

Boulben said he expects higher prices could generate more than $1 billion in additional service revenue this year, and that customer churn could be lower in 2025 than 2024 despite near-term headwinds. He reiterated the company's forecast for wireless service revenue to grow by 2% to 2.8% this year. Verizon is scheduled to report first-quarter earnings on April 22.

Shares of Verizon fell 7% intraday Tuesday, but are up 8% since the start of 2025.

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