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Cost-cutting and the lure of the iPhone softened the effect of the weak economy at AT&T Inc., helping the country's biggest telecommunications carrier beat analyst estimates for the first quarter.

AT&T said Wednesday it earned more than $3.1 billion, or 53 cents per share, in the first three months of 2009, down 9.7 percent from almost $3.5 billion, or 57 cents per share, a year earlier.

The earnings were reduced by 5 cents per share for increases in noncash pension and retiree expenses. Excluding that item, the earnings were 58 cents per share. The average estimate of analysts polled by Thomson Reuters, which generally excludes items, was for earnings of 48 cents per share.

Despite strong wireless sales, AT&T says revenue slipped to $30.6 billion from $30.7 billion a year ago. That was short of analyst expectations at $31.1 billion.

Revenue fell because the weak economy exacerbated the long-running decline of AT&T's landline business. Sales of traditional fixed phone service fell 12.2 percent to $8.7 billion.

AT&T shares rose 32 cents, or 1.3 percent, to $25.60 in morning trading.

Even as revenue declined, AT&T improved its overall profit margin slightly, helped by the continuing process of integrating BellSouth Corp., which it bought in 2006. It has also reduced its work force by 8,000 people since the beginning of the year, mainly by cutting jobs on the wired side of the business. It had 294,600 employees at the end of the quarter.

AT&T added a net 875,000 customers under contract in the first three months of the year, hundreds of thousands more than expected by analysts. Of the new customers, about three-quarters chose the iPhone, for which AT&T is the exclusive U.S. carrier.

The iPhone has been a drag on AT&T's earnings since last summer, when the latest model, the "3G," launched. AT&T has been subsidizing each phone by hundreds of dollars, with the aim of making its money back on service fees, since iPhone users pay 60 percent more per month than other customers.

That strategy started to pay off in the first quarter. Margins in the wireless business are now back almost to where they were before the launch of the iPhone 3G, despite the sale of 1.6 million iPhones in the quarter. The sales figure includes customers switching from other AT&T phones. Sales were down from 1.9 million from the fourth quarter, but were strong for a non-holiday quarter without a new iPhone model.

Apple Inc.'s phone also helped AT&T avoid getting caught up in a trend analysts are expecting to see this year: more customers signing up for prepaid service than for expensive contract-based plans. Only a quarter of new subscribers at AT&T chose prepaid in the quarter, compared to more than half at T-Mobile USA.

Two segments of AT&T's landline business also did well. Its cable-like TV service, U-Verse, signed up 284,000 subscribers, for a total of 1.3 million. It added 359,000 subscribers to wired broadband, a performance that bucks years of declining numbers in a saturating market.

Online marketplace operator eBay Inc. reports its first-quarter results Wednesday. The following is a summary of key developments and analyst commentary related to the period.

OVERVIEW: During its first quarter, San Jose, Calif.-based eBay continued to weather the global economic downturn and acknowledged that its marketplace business - which it has been struggling to improve - has a way to go. The company also talked up its online payments business, PayPal, and predicted that business will double in size by 2011.

Speaking during a day of analyst briefings in March, Chief Executive John Donahoe and other executives laid out changes to eBay's marketplace business, including focusing more on the market for offseason or liquidation-ready items, refining onsite search capabilities and working even more on cultivating buyers' trust.

EBay also said it expects PayPal, which is its second-largest business, to process between $100 billion and $120 billion in annual payments by 2011. In 2008, the service, which has 70 million active user accounts, processed $60 billion in transactions.

BY THE NUMBERS: In January, eBay forecast first-quarter earnings of 21 cents to 23 cents per share - or 32 cents to 34 cents per share when excluding items. The company also predicted $1.80 billion to $2.05 billion in revenue.

At the time, this was well below what analysts polled by Thomson Reuters were anticipating. Now, however, they expect eBay to report first-quarter adjusted earnings of 33 cents per share on $1.94 billion in revenue.

ANALYST TAKE: In a note to clients, Jefferies & Co. analyst Youssef Squali predicted the company's results will meet "muted expectations" and that management will maintain a cautious outlook for the rest of the year due to weakened consumer demand and eBay's ongoing work to improve its marketplace.

Squali rates eBay shares "Buy" with a $20 price target.

WHAT'S AHEAD: EBay is increasingly trying to focus on its marketplace and payment businesses and shed parts of the business that don't really fit in. This month, the company agreed to pay up to $1.2 billion to buy all outstanding common shares and American Depositary Shares of South Korea's biggest online marketplace, Gmarket.

Just two days earlier, eBay had said it plans to separate Internet communications service Skype from the rest of the company through an initial public offering in 2010. EBay bought Skype for $2.6 billion in 2005, but later wrote down much of its value - essentially an acknowledgment that the company had hugely overvalued it.

STOCK PERFORMANCE: Shares declined 10 percent during the quarter to close at $12.56 on March 31. The stock has since rebounded and traded at $13.94 in afternoon trading Monday, down 45 cents.

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The Campbell Soup Co. says its first-quarter profit fell 3.7 percent, but its sales rose as people bought more condensed soup.

The company said Monday it earned $260 million, or 71 cents per share in the quarter ended Nov. 2. That compares to $270 million, or 70 cents per share, a year earlier.

The Camden-based soupmaker says its sales rose 3 percent to $2.25 billion for the quarter, from $2.19 billion. Campbell's says condensed soup sales rose 14 percent in the quarter.

Excluding one-time items, such as restructuring costs and losses on commodity hedges, the company would have earned $281 million, or 77 cents per share.

The company says it expects to be hurt in the fiscal year by unfavorable exchange rates.

A boost in sales worldwide helped Burger King post a 2 percent increase in its fiscal first-quarter profit on Friday, but higher food costs and other expenses still took a bite out of its earnings.

The nation's No. 2 hamburger chain reported increases in commodity, remodeling and acquisition startup costs, leading the chain to miss Wall Street's profit estimates by a penny per share.

Higher commodity costs have been a problem for virtually all restaurant chains, with the price of beef, chicken, cheese and cooking oil all rising.

On a conference call with analysts, Chief Executive John Chidsey said the company's "commodities basket" grew 17 percent in the quarter -- a hefty rise that it partially offset by raising prices on selected items in some markets.

Chidsey said the company is testing a higher-priced Whopper Jr. sandwich in some areas to see whether consumers are willing to pay more for the smaller version of its iconic burger.

He called the higher price "simply a learning project," adding that the company is "hesitant" to permanently raise the price since the higher costs could be more of a short-term problem.

Burger King's biggest rival, industry-leader McDonald's Corp., said this week it would ask franchisees to consider charging a bit more than a dollar for the Double Cheeseburger and replacing the sandwich on the popular Dollar Menu with a less cheesy double burger.

McDonald's has for months been considering tinkering with its Dollar Menu due to high food costs. It also reported higher commodity costs in its latest quarter, but its profit was more insulated from the increases due in part to a 7.1 percent rise in global same-store sales.

Some relief from high commodity prices may be in sight, Burger King said, noting that prices for beef, cheese and oils have "significantly decreased" since the end of July.

"Those commodity costs had skyrocketed and now they've just dropped off a cliff," said Morningstar analyst John Owens.

But it's unlikely that commodity costs will stop weighing down profit. Burger King said it still expects those expenses to rise between 5 percent and 7 percent year-over-year for the full fiscal year.

For the fiscal first quarter, Miami-based Burger King Holdings Inc. said net income rose to $50 million, or 36 cents per share, from $49 million, or 35 cents per share in the year-ago quarter. Burger King earned 38 cents per share excluding charges, one penny shy of Wall Street estimates, according to Thomson Reuters.

Revenue grew 12 percent to $674 million from $602 million. Analysts predicted $667.6 million.

Same-store sales, or sales at locations open at least a year, rose 3.6 percent worldwide. Despite the economic turmoil in the U.S., same-store sales in the U.S. and Canada rose 3 percent.

Stifel Nicolaus analyst Steve West called the same-store sales increase "great news ... bolstering our belief Burger King's consumer in the U.S. is still strong even in the face of severe macroeconomic headwinds."

Burger King said the higher prices in some markets as well as its value menu items and breakfast and late-night menus helped increase sales worldwide.

Overseas, limited-time offer Whopper sandwiches also added to sales, while in the U.S., the company said new products including the Steakhouse Burger and a new Kids Meal featuring Kraft Macaroni and Cheese and Fresh Apple Fries boosted revenue.

The downturn in the economy may have also provided a helping hand to U.S. sales since consumers have increasingly been turning to fast food in an attempt to save cash. Consumers -- spooked by bank failures, declines in the stock market and talk of a prolonged recession -- have cut back on spending in recent months and have been avoiding pricier sit-down chains.

The company also reaffirmed its 2009 profit outlook for earnings per share growth of 12 percent to 15 percent, implying profit of $1.54 to $1.59 per share. Analysts see $1.56 per share.

Burger King said it expects to add 350 to 400 new restaurants in the 2009 fiscal year.

Shares rose 36 cents to $20.60 in afternoon trading