Earnings Update

Bellsouth Corp
25 February 2005


For Immediate Release:

February 25, 2005

                   BellSouth Updates Fourth Quarter Earnings


ATLANTA - BellSouth Corporation (NYSE:BLS) announced today two adjustments to
its previously released fourth quarter 2004 earnings.



Cingular lease accounting


BellSouth announced that it will record a charge against fourth quarter results
to reflect the correction of an error relating to the lease accounting practices
of Cingular Wireless, LLC. This change will not affect Cingular's cash flows and
is expected to result in the acceleration of rental expense, which would balance
out over the life of the affected lease.   BellSouth will record a $70 million
pre-tax adjustment $43 million on an after-tax basis) to reduce its equity in
earnings from Cingular.


This change to BellSouth's fourth quarter 2004 results will reduce earnings from
continuing operations by 2 cents and will be normalized.  There is no impact to
previously reported normalized earnings per share of 35 cents for the quarter
and $1.83 cents for the year of 2004.   Prior years' financial results will not
be restated due to the immateriality of this adjustment to the results of
operations, cash flows and financial position for the current year or any
individual or prior period.


Gain on sale of discontinued operations


BellSouth announced a correction to the reported gain on sale of 8 Latin
American wireless properties sold during the fourth quarter of 2004.  The
after-tax gain of $915 million previously reported in income from discontinued
operations was reduced by    $64 million, or 3 cents a share, to reflect a
provision for potential tax obligations in connection with the sale.



About BellSouth Corporation


BellSouth Corporation is a Fortune 100 communications company headquartered in
Atlanta, GA and a 40% owner of Cingular Wireless, the nation's largest wireless
voice and data provider.



Backed by award winning customer service, BellSouth offers the most
comprehensive and innovative package of voice and data services available in the
market. Through BellSouth Answers(R), residential and small business customers
can bundle their local and long distance service with dial up and high speed DSL
Internet access, satellite television and Cingular(R) Wireless service. For
businesses, BellSouth provides secure, reliable local and long distance voice
and data networking solutions. BellSouth also offers online and directory
advertising through BellSouth(R) RealPages.com(R) and The Real Yellow Pages(R).


More information about BellSouth can be found at http://www.bellsouth.com.


                      This information is provided by RNS
            The company news service from the London Stock Exchange