To say T-Mobile has had an impact on the American wireless industry would be an understatement. The “Un-carrier” has introduced a broad series of initiatives that rivals have scrambled to emulate, from early upgrade smartphone plans to rollover data to programs that pay off new customers’ early termination fees when they switch from other carriers. Couple these initiatives with a very smart marketing push and you get a mobile carrier that’s punching way above its weight in a wireless market that Verizon and AT&T have traditionally dominated.
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For some perspective about how much T-Mobile has been schooling rivals over the past year, we give you the following numbers courtesy of BTIG analyst Walter Piecyk:
Q2 Wireless service revenue growth$TMUS +11.1%$T -0.2%$VZ -1.8%$S -7.6%
Big 4 -0.6%— Walter Piecyk (@WaltLightShed) August 4, 2015
As you can see, T-Mobile was the only wireless carrier to post any year-over-year wireless service revenue growth (+11.1%) in the second quarter this year. AT&T came relatively close to breaking even with -0.2% year-over-year service revenue growth but both Verizon (-1.8%) and Sprint (-7.6%) were both deep in the red.
And T-Mobile isn’t just smoking rivals in wireless service revenue growth but in other metrics as well. For example, here are the numbers for overall wireless revenue growth.
Q2 Total wireless revenue growth$TMUS +13.0%$VZ +5.3%$T +2.1%$S -8.0%
Big 4 +3.3%— Walter Piecyk (@WaltLightShed) August 4, 2015
While Sprint was the only carrier to post negative growth in this category, T-Mobile nonetheless led the pack with +13% YoY growth. Now let’s look at the number of postpaid phone additions in Q2 2015:
Q2 Post-paid phone net adds $TMUS +760 $VZ +321$S -12k$T -322
Big 4 +747— Walter Piecyk (@WaltLightShed) August 4, 2015
While AT&T and Sprint both lost postpaid phones on the quarter, T-Mobile led the industry with 760,000 postpaid phone additions in Q2. Verizon had a solid quarter in this area but still added less than half of the postpaid phones that T-Mobile did.
Taking it all together, T-Mobile is positively steamrolling competitors when it comes to revenue and subscriber growth right now. It will still take a long time for the “Un-carrier” to ever match Verizon and AT&T in terms of total subscribers but it’s definitely made enough of an impact now to make America’s two biggest wireless providers feel nervous.
