T-Mobile USA Adds 371k Customers in Q4

T-Mobile USA, Inc. announced today its financial results for the fourth quarter of the last year, reporting customer net additions of 371,000 for the time frame, compared to net customer losses of 77,000 in the previous quarter. At the same time, the wireless carrier also announced that it registered a great increase in 3G-capable converged device users and coverage throughout the entire year. T-Mobile reported OIBDA of $1.38 billion for Q4, lower than in Q3 and the year before, mainly due to higher customer acquisition and advertising costs.

“T-Mobile USA delivered on two significant objectives in 2009. The first was to achieve national scale with a high-quality 3G network offering. This was realized in the fourth quarter of 2009 with more than 200 million people now covered across the country. The second was to launch our first HSPA+ market. The successful launch of T-Mobile HSPA+ in Philadelphia now serves as the model for a national roll-out of one of the fastest and most pervasive networks in the United States,” said Robert Dotson, president and CEO, T-Mobile USA. “This renewed competitive network strength coupled with the strong value of our new Even More value rate plans, which offer unsubsidized handset options and no contracts, puts T-Mobile in a new competitive position to drive increasing data usage and entice quality customers to T-Mobile.”

At the end of the fourth quarter of 2009, T-Mobile had 33.8 million customers, up from the 33.4 million registered at the end of the previous quarter, and up from 32.8 million at the end of the same time frame a year before. Net contract customer losses were of 117,000 in Q4 2009, due primarily to fewer FlexPay customer additions. Prepaid net customer additions reported for Q4 were of 488,000, and the company reported that its contract customers accounted for 79 percent of T-Mobile USA’s total customer base as of December 31, 2009.

Churn rate was of 3.3 percent in the fourth quarter of 2009, and the wireless carrier reported net income of $306 million for the time frame. Service revenues totaled $4.65 billion in the time frame, down both quarterly and on a year-on-year basis. Total revenues were of $5.41 billion in the fourth quarter of 2009, up sequentially but down from the fourth quarter of 2008. The operator also announced blended Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) of $46 in the time frame, down from Q3 and from Q4 2008. “T-Mobile USA’s national 3G network now reaches 205 million people, almost doubling coverage in 2009. Furthermore, the entire 3G network was upgraded during the fourth quarter of 2009 to HSPA 7.2 Mbps (megabits per second),” the company concluded.