News
Operator adds 8.3 million customers for second year running; branded postpaid net additions come in at 1.3 million.
T-Mobile US maintained its momentum in the final quarter of 2015, adding 2.1 million customers, bringing its customer base up to 63.3 million in total.
It marks the 11th consecutive quarter of more than 1 million net additions. Net additions for the whole of 2015 came in at 8.3 million, the same as in 2014.
"That means we added 23,000 customers per day, every day for the last two years," said T-Mobile US chief executive John Legere, in a statement. "Trust me when I say we have no plans to stop disrupting the status quo in wireless."
According to preliminary figures, branded postpaid net customer additions for the three months to 31 December were 1.3 million, the sixth quarter in a row where they have topped 1 million, T-Mobile said. Of these, 917,000 were phone customers, giving the telco a total branded postpaid phone base of 29.4 million, up from 25.8 million a year ago.
Branded postpaid phone churn fell 27 basis points year-on-year to 1.46%.
"For full-year 2015, the company [recorded] 4.5 million branded postpaid net customer additions, well above the revised guidance for branded postpaid net customer additions of 3.8 [million] to 4.2 million provided in connection with the third quarter of 2015 earnings," T-Mobile said.
Meanwhile, during the fourth quarter, the company also added 469,000 branded prepaid customers and 301,000 wholesale customers.
This time last year, T-Mobile US was the country’s fourth-biggest mobile operator, and was narrowing the gap on third-placed Sprint.
T-Mobile US finally overtook Sprint during the three months to 30 June. In the quarter that followed, Sprint pushed hard to attract new customers, but T-Mobile tightened its grip on third place, ending September with 61.2 million customers to Sprint’s 57.9 million.
T-Mobile US is due to publish its full fourth quarter financial and operational results in February.
