As more Americans embrace 5G, T-Mobile benefits as its Q2 results show

T-Mobile continues to ring up industry-leading numbers as 5G attracts new subscribers. During the second quarter running from April through June, the nation's second-largest carrier attracted an industry best 1.3 million net additions to its postpaid subscriber list (up 164,000 year-over-year) and also raised its guidance for this category for the remainder of 2021. The number of postpaid phone net additions rose 2.5x over last year's number to 627,000 and it also reported a record high and industry best postpaid account net additions of 349,000.

Postpaid churn of .87% was 12 basis points lower on a sequential basis and up 7 basis points year-over-year. Pre-paid net customer additions of 76,000 were 57,000 customers below last year's figure in this category although pre-paid churn remains the tops in the business at 2.62%. Total net customer additions for the period came to 1.4 million, up 107,000 on an annual basis and the carrier now has 104.8 million customers.

T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert said following the release of the report, "Stellar postpaid customer gains and industry-leading service revenue growth translated into industry-best growth in profitability and cash flow, and drove another beat and raise quarter – all fueled by unprecedented synergies that only T-Mobile can deliver. As we capitalize on our 5G leadership, it’s increasingly clear that our unmatched network, outstanding value and customer-centric experiences are setting the Un-carrier apart from everyone else."

For the quarter T-Mobile took in $20 billion, a gain of 13% year-over-year. The company reported the strongest growth in Service revenues in the industry for the quarter at 10% bringing the total to $14.5 billion. Net income of $978 million was more than eight times the $110 million reported for the same quarter last year, and up from the $933 million in net reported last quarter, the first of 2021.

Diluted earnings per share weighed in at 78 cents compared to the 9 cents of net income that the carrier reported during the same quarter last year. On a sequential basis, the 78 cents per share compares to the 74 cents per share that T-Mobile garnered during this year's first quarter.

Many analysts consider T-Mobile to be the leader in 5G. For example, Ookla says that the wireless provider's 5G network covers 92% of all Interstate Highway Miles compared to 68% for AT&T and 51% for Verizon. Opensignal says that T-Mobile's 5G network is the "fastest based on real-world customer usage from millions of device measurements. Since the beginning of the year, average download speeds for T-Mobile customers have increased by 50%.

What good is a fast 5G signal if you can't access it when you need it? T-Mobile was ranked first in 5G reliability by network research firm umlaut for the second consecutive time.

The company raised some of its internal projections for 2021 and now sees postpaid net customer additions rising between 5.0 million and 5.3 million, an increase from prior guidance of 4.4 million to 4.9 million. Wall Street has a very minor reaction to the report. During the trading day, the company's stock declined .34% or 49 cents to $144.63. After hours, another $2.43 (1.68%) came off of the price taking it down to $142.20.

That T-Mobile is in the position that it's in now is an amazing story. Dead last among the four major U.S. carriers, the company made a major personnel move when it picked John Legere to be CEO in September 2012. With his rock star haircut, a penchant for wearing T-Mobile T-shirts as his daily work attire, his constant desire to put the customer first, and his attacks on the competition, Legere was not your typical buttoned-down pinstripe wearing CEO.

Soon, T-Mobile became the most innovative of the carriers as it was the first to end subsidized phone purchases and launched popular programs such as rollover minutes, zero-rated music streaming, free Netflix, and more. Legere stepped down once the T-Mobile-Sprint merger was completed and was replaced with this right-hand man Mike Sievert who has managed to keep the momentum going for T-Mobile.

T-Mobile's low-band Extended Range 5G service now covers 305 million people with download data speeds that barely top 4G. Its mid-band Ultra-Capacity 5G covers 165 potential subscribers, on track to reach 200 million by year's end. The service features an average download data speed of 350Mbps. This network has recently been added to T-Mobile's coverage map.

Lastly, 80% of Sprint customer traffic is now carried on the T-Mobile network as 33% of Sprint subscribers have been moved to the T-Mobile network.