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T-Mobile is still turning the mobile world on its head, smashing all rival carriers

Published Oct 27th, 2015 9:00AM EDT
T-Mobile Q3 2015 Earnings Analysis

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T-Mobile released its third-quarter earnings report on Tuesday and despite some investor angst about missing its EPS consensus estimate, it’s clear that the “Un-carrier” is still shaking up the wireless industry and is posting post-paid subscriber additions that are the envy of the mobile world. For some more context on just how well T-Mobile is doing, let’s go to BTIG analyst Walter Piecyk, who posted some striking numbers comparing T-Mobile’s performance to its rivals on Twitter this morning.

MORE T-MOBILE: T-Mobile currently has a plane writing customer complaints over Verizon’s HQ

Here’s the most important one when it comes to quarterly bragging rights:

Post-paid subscribers deliver more average revenue per user than pre-paid subscribers and are thus a key metric to understanding how well carriers are doing at attracting lucrative customers. As you can see, T-Mobile last quarter added nearly twice the number of post-paid subscribers compared to Verizon while AT&T lost post-paid subscribers on the quarter.

And this isn’t just a fluke for one quarter — here are the numbers for net post-paid phone additions for the entire year:

Not a great number for AT&T.

Speaking of AT&T, this is a number that T-Mobile’s favorite target will certainly not be happy to see:

AT&T still has significantly more subscribers than T-Mobile, of course, but the “Un-carrier’s” aggressive deals for the iPhone 6s, among other things, have impressively helped it blow past AT&T in smartphone sales for one quarter at least.

And finally, Piecyk notes that T-Mobile’s year-over-year churn is down for the third consecutive quarter:

While this isn’t as big of an indicator as the other two numbers mentioned earlier, it does indicate that T-Mobile is doing a better job of holding onto subscribers than it did a year ago. In other words, customers aren’t just rushing in for cheap iPhone 6s deals and then fleeing for AT&T or Verizon as soon as it’s convenient.

Brad Reed
Brad Reed Staff Writer

Brad Reed has written about technology for over eight years at BGR.com and Network World. Prior to that, he wrote freelance stories for political publications such as AlterNet and the American Prospect. He has a Master's Degree in Business and Economics Journalism from Boston University.