Verizon Communications Inc. added 1.4 million contract subscribers in the second quarter, Chief Executive Officer Lowell McAdam said.

“We think this is going to be a great quarter for us,” McAdam said in an interview on CNBC from the Allen & Co. conference in Sun Valley, Idaho. He was referring to the period that ended in June. “We had record tablet growth, we had very good churn and we delivered margins that were consistent with the last several quarters.”

The subscriber gain exceeds the 900,000 estimate of John Hodulik, an analyst at UBS AG.

Verizon, the largest U.S. mobile-phone company, is working to keep customers from defecting to competitors such as T-Mobile US Inc., which is dangling offers such as free music streaming. New York-based Verizon had a net loss of phone customers for the first time in the first quarter, though tablet sales helped boost overall wireless subscriptions by 539,000 in the period that ended in March.

Verizon shares gained 1.5 percent to $49.64 in New York Thursday, according to preliminary closing figures. The stock had dropped less than 1 percent this year through Wednesday.