T-Mobile stock hits 52-week high following strong Q3 earnings release

On Thursday, T-Mobile reported third-quarter earnings that were strong enough to drive the stock to a new 52-week high of $151.93. In fact, the shares soared today by 7.4% or $10.37 to $151 by the close. During the third quarter, the nation's second-largest wireless carrier reported 854,000 net postpaid phone customer additions. That was the largest total since the merger with Sprint closed and was the largest total in the U.S. wireless industry for the quarter.

T-Mobile also set a company record with 394,000 postpaid net account additions, also the highest in the industry. The postpaid net customer additions of 1.6 million were more than Verizon and AT&T combined. Postpaid phone churn, the percentage of customers that left T-Mobile for another carrier, improved to .88% making it the only wireless operator to show improvement in churn on a year-over-year basis.

Prepaid revenue for the quarter, at $2.48 billion, was flat with the previous year's figure. Prepaid net customer additions amounted to 105,000 which was 39,000 more than the number added last year.

With an industry-leading 7% annual hike in postpaid services growth, T-Mobile collected $15.4 billion in services revenue, up 4% year-over-year. Total revenue of $19.48 billion was down slightly from the year-earlier $19.62 billion. Net income of $508 million, and diluted earnings per share of 40 cents were down from $723 million and 55 cents for the same quarter last year.

Earnings were impacted by $972 million, or $0.77 per share because of costs related to the Sprint merger. Another $803 million or 64 cents a share in earnings were subtracted due to the anticipated sale of the wireline business.

T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert commented on the report by saying, "We’ve always said our aspiration was to be the first and only provider to offer customers both the best network and the best value without having to sacrifice one for the other — and based on another set of standout customer and financial results for Q3, it's clear we’re delivering on that promise."

The executive added, "On the heels of our highest-ever postpaid account net additions and industry-leading postpaid and broadband customer growth, we are raising guidance for the third time this year. Our Un-carrier playbook continues to win in this ever-changing competitive and macro-economic climate and our momentum is only getting stronger."

The carrier's Ultra-Capacity 5G network, which uses T-Mobile's 2.5GHz mid-band spectrum, now covers 250 million people, or as many as Verizon plans to cover two years from now.