T-Mobile Trumps Verizon In Q4 Net Additions

T-Mobile US hailed Q4 2018 its best-ever in terms of net subscriber additions, as it revealed preliminary figures which show it outpaced strong growth by larger rival Verizon.

The operator added 1.4 million postpaid users during the quarter, some 1 million of which involved phone contracts (implying the remainder covered other devices including tablet PCs). The postpaid figure was T-Mobile’s greatest during a fourth-quarter: it was accompanied by a record-low churn rate of 0.99 percent.

Overall net additions for the quarter totaled 2.4 million. While T-Mobile did not provide a breakdown, it is likely the remaining 1 million was comprised of prepay phone and tablet customers, along with IoT and M2M connections.

For the full year, T-Mobile said it had 79.7 million customers in total, continuing its march as the fastest growing US operator.

It noted that since it launched its “un-carrier” movement in 2013, its approach to snare market share by offering customers numerous additions and perks to their traditional mobile plans, it has increased its customer base by more than 46 million in total.

Beating Verizon
The company’s Q4 customer numbers were particularly notable as they also outpaced strong growth from market leader Verizon, which this week revealed 1.2 million net additions in Q4, of which 650,000 were phone subscribers.

T-Mobile CEO John Legere hailed an impressive Q4, which he said was delivered “in a competitive climate”, while the company also works to complete a merger with Sprint.

“That’s 23 quarters in a row where more than 1 million customers have chosen T-Mobile, along with a postpaid phone churn result that’s below 1 percent,” he said.―Mobile World Live