News
Outspoken operator raises customer, EBITDA guidance after reporting surge in first-quarter revenue, earnings.
T-Mobile US on Tuesday again justified its upfront and outspoken tactics by reporting another quarter of surging revenue and earnings growth off the back of strong customer additions.
The company notched up 2.2 million net additions in the three months to 31 March, 877,000 of whom were branded postpaid phone customers, and a further 807,000 were branded prepaid customers. T-Mobile ended the quarter with a customer base totalling 65.5 million, compared to 56.8 million 12 months ago.
"Our model is working and the business momentum is accelerating across the board," said T-Mobile US chief executive John Legere, in a statement.
Indeed, T-Mobile’s first-quarter revenue increased to US$8.6 billion (€7.6 billion) from $7.78 billion in the same period a year ago. Lower operating expenses driven by lower hardware sale costs and gains from spectrum licence sales resulted in operating profit surging to $1.1 billion from $117 million.
As a result, T-Mobile swung to a first-quarter net profit of $479 million from a year-earlier loss of $63 million.
The first quarter’s strong performance led T-Mobile to raise its full-year outlook.
The company expects branded postpaid net customer additions of 3.2 million-3.6 million, up from an earlier forecast of 2.4 million-3.4 million.
T-Mobile also expects adjusted EBITDA for 2016 to come in at $9.7 billion-$10.2 billion, compared to its previous forecast of $9.1 billion-$9.7 billion.
