T-Mobile US tops net phone additions in Q3

T-Mobile US’s decision not to raise prices in line with rivals AT&T and Verizon paid off as it racked up postpaid phone subscriber net additions of 854,000 in the third quarter, its highest since a merger with Sprint in 2020.

During T-Mobile’s earnings call, CEO Mike Sievert (illustrated) also highlighted industry-leading net additions of 394,000 postpaid accounts, the highest in the operator’s history.

“We achieved an industry-best 1.6 million postpaid net adds, more than AT&T and Verizon combined,” he said, noting that postpaid phone churn of 0.88% “improved eight basis points” year over year.

Sievert also highlighted the progress of decommissioning work at 35,000 Sprint sites, most of which was completed in the third quarter, a year ahead of schedule.

Wireless service revenue increased 4.3% to $15.4 billion, with postpaid revenue increasing 7%.

T-Mobile raised its annual forecast for postpaid wireless subscriber additions for the third time in 2022 to 6.2 million to 6.4 million, from 6 to 6.3 million previously forecast.

It added 578,000 broadband subscribers, mostly via fixed wireless access (FWA), for a total of 2.1 million.

Recon Analytics analyst Roger Entner said Mobile world live price increases by rivals “have increased T-Mobile’s value differentiation.”

“The churn rate was very good. The FWA net adds were good, but I expected them to be even stronger”.

Net income fell 25.5% to $508 million, with overall revenue falling from $19.6 billion in the third quarter of 2021 to $19.4 billion.

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