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Verizon Wireless may not have equaled the net subscriber gains of rival AT&T Mobility, but it did post generally solid metrics for the first quarter, with improving churn rates and another healthy ramp in data revenue.

Verizon’s 1.35 million net subscriber additions were strong, but not enough to beat arch rival AT&T Mobility’s 1.56 million net additions posted just a day earlier. It also was down compared to the 1.55 million net additions in the first quarter but an improvement from the 1.14 million additions in the second quarter 2009.

Of that, 665,000 were postpaid customers, up from 429,000 added in the first quarter but down from 1.08 million in the prior second quarter. The net subscriber gains were good enough to raise Verizon’s total sub count to 92.06 million, retaining the number one spot in terms of subscriber count among U.S. carriers.

Verizon’s churn rate also improved, coming in at 1.27% compared to 1.4% in the first quarter and 1.37% in the second quarter a year ago.

On the revenue side, Verizon continued to ride the data growth wave, with data average revenue per user ramping to $17.85 from $16.71 in the first quarter and $14.96 in the second quarter a year ago. That pushed overall data revenue to $4.8 billion, up from $4.61 billion in the first quarter and $3.91 billion in the prior second quarter.

Overall, Verizon Wireless once again contributed healthy income to parents Verizon Communications Inc. and Vodafone Plc. Total revenue hit $16 billion, up from $15.78 billion in the first quarter and $15.48 billion in the first quarter last year.

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