News
Operator added 8.3 million subscribers in 2015; full-year revenue jumps 8.4%.
T-Mobile US on Wednesday reported rocketing fourth-quarter profit thanks to continued strong customer additions and a one-off gain from the disposal of spectrum licences.
In the three months to 31 December, net profit attributable to shareholders surged to US$283 million (€254.19 million), up from $125 million a year earlier. Revenue increased to $8.25 billion, up 5.1% year-on-year.
Operating expenses increased to $7.41 billion from $7.34 billion in Q4 2014, driven by a 5% jump in selling, general and administrative expenses due to T-Mobile’s swelling customer base.
However, lower costs related to MetroPCS and a $139 million gain on the disposal of spectrum licences resulted in operating profit growing 63.4% year-on-year to $838 million.
As previously reported, T-Mobile added 2.1 million customers in the final quarter of 2015, bringing its total base up to 63.3 million in total.
Branded postpaid net customer additions came in at 1.3 million. 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.
"We set out to change this industry, we’re well on our way and we won’t stop," said T-Mobile US chief executive John Legere, in a statement.
T-Mobile reported net customer additions of 8.3 million for the whole of 2015, flat compared to 2014, but impressive nonetheless.
In terms of its full-year financials, revenue increased to $32.05 billion from $29.56 billion in 2014, while net profit grew to $678 million from $247 million.
For 2016, T-Mobile forecast branded postpaid net additions of 2.4 million-3.4 million, down from 4.5 million in 2015.
Adjusted EBITDA is expected to come in at $9.1 billion-$9.7 billion, compared to $7.39 billion last year, while capex is expected to be between $4.5 billion and $4.8 billion.
