verizon.com/2017AnnualReport 6 Even as we make these and other acquisitions, we continue to uphold our longstanding commitment to financial discipline and shareholder value. Verizon has generated substantial savings from process improvements and operational realignments, and we’ve launched a major initiative to save $10 billion by 2021 through further reductions and processes to work smarter and more efficiently. In addition, we expect the recent tax-reform legislation to have a positive impact to cash flow from operations in 2018 of approximately $3.5 billion to $4 billion, which we will use primarily to further strengthen our balance sheet. Because of our robust balance sheet, we have delivered on our commitment to produce long-term value for our shareholders. The Board of Directors declared the 11th consecutive annual dividend increase in September, returning significant value to shareholders. Giving people the ability to do more With a strong balance sheet and cash flow fueling network investment, we have the means to achieve Verizon’s core purpose: To give people the ability to do more in this world. Our customers are right there with us, eagerly embracing our most advanced products. What we offer right now through our 4G LTE and all-fiber Fios services is just the start. With even faster broadband networks and especially with 5G we will be able to offer wholly new services far beyond anything commercially available today. Services like 3D video. Virtual and augmented reality. Holograms. The potential applications of such technologies are staggering to consider everything from immersive gaming to real-time “same room” interactions with coworkers, classmates and loved ones who may be thousands of miles away. To ensure we take full advantage of this convergence of connectivity and content, Verizon has made some important strategic acquisitions. In 2017, we completed the purchase of the operating business of Yahoo, which significantly expands our content offerings as well as the audience to which we can stream that content. We combined Yahoo’s operating business with our existing media business to create Oath, a company that includes diverse media and technology brands which engage approximately one billion global content consumers. Oath generated about $6 billion in revenues in 2017. This scale enables us to attract high-value content partners, as we saw in our recent agreements with the National Football League and the National Basketball Association to stream live games and other content to users on our mobile and digital properties. Such partnerships will create tremendous possibilities as our customer base continues to expand and our networks continue to achieve new breakthroughs in speed and quality. Expanding our digital-media presence is not only exciting, it’s deeply important to our company’s future. When we Our goal has always been to improve lives through innovation.
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