T-Mobile USA’s first quarterly results of the year appears to show its Uncarrier campaign is working in attracting prepaid customers, though still lost high-earning postpaid accounts. Despite adding more customers overall, revenues for the quarter hit $4.68 billion, a drop of seven percent compared to $5.03 billion received for the same quarter last year.
Branded prepaid customer numbers rose for the seventh consecutive quarter, adding another 202,000, but this is offset by a loss of 199,000 branded postpaid customers. Though the overall branded customer growth of 3,000 is the first since 2009, total customer additions are up by 579,000.
Service revenues decreased by almost 10 percent to $4 billion, but this was offset by higher revenues from equipment sales. Since April 12th, T-Mobile managed to sell approximately 500,000 units of the iPhone 5, and also added roughly another 100,000 pre-owned iPhones per month throughout the quarter via its Bring Your Own Device program.
“Our first quarter operating metrics and financial results are showing positive impact from the changes we began making in the fourth quarter,” said John Legere, CEO and president of T-Mobile. “Things only get more exciting from here, having brought T-Mobile USA and MetroPCS together to create the wireless industry’s value leader and premier challenger.”
Though the merger of T-Mobile USA and MetroPCS completed on May 1st, it did not take place early enough to affect the results. The financial effects of the merger will likely be revealed in the next few quarterly results reports.
