T-Mobile reports another strong quarter with 798K new postpaid phone subscribers

T-Mobile this afternoon released its quarterly earnings report for the first three month period of 2017. Covering January through March, the nation's third largest carrier added 798,000 postpaid phone subscribers. Considering that Verizon lost 289,000 customers in this category for its first quarter, T-Mobile seems to be running on all cylinders. The company says that it alone will be responsible for 250% of the industry's growth in the quarter. The postpaid phone churn for the three months was a record low 1.18%, down 15 basis points from last year, and 10 basis points from the fourth quarter of 2016. For the quarter, total revenues rose 11% to $9.6 billion. Net income rose 46% to $698 million, or 80 cents per share.

Prepaid net additions were 386,000 during the first quarter. T-Mobile says that its MetroPCS pre-paid operations are responsible for the success that T-Mobile is having on this front. Prepaid churn, which is typically much higher than the postpaid figures as subscribers come and go, was 4.01%. That was a 17 basis point rise year-over-year, and a 7 basis point rise from the previous quarter.

Investors apparently saw the report coming. During regular trading hours, the stock was up $1.23 or 1.9% to $65.93. After the report was released, some profit taking dropped the stock by 61 cents (.93%) to $65.32.

source: T-Mobile