Mobile profit almost triples, adds 2.1 million customers

The No. 3 US wireless provider said on Wednesday that net income jumped to $297 million, or 34 cents per share, in the quarter from $101 million, or 12 cents per share, a year earlier.

The quarter ending December marked the 11 consecutive quarter of more than 1 million total net adds, consisting of branded postpaid phones, branded prepaid phones, postpaid tablets, other postpaid data devices, and MNVO subscriptions. T-Mobile’s prepaid net additions increased ~76.3% YoY in 4Q15. It also marks the second straight year in which T-Mobile was able to add at least eight million net customers.

In Jan 2016, T-Mobile US provided a preliminary view on subscriber addition in the fourth quarter and full-year 2015. The campaign helped the company attract close to 1.3 million new postpaid customers for its network but also incurred $100 million in cost. T-Mobile reported 2.1 million net adds in its latest period, bringing its tally for the year to 8.3 million.

Churn: Branded postpaid phone churn fell 27 basis points from the year ago quarter to 1.46 percent, while branded prepaid phone churn fell to 4.2 percent from the year-ago 5.39 percent. We believe such robust customer additions, 4G LTE network expansion and the rising popularity of the Un-Carrier business should boost the company’s revenues in the to-be-reported quarter. Sales rose to $8.25 billion, compared with the $8.2 billion average estimate.

T-Mobile’s success has to be as a result of its ongoing Un-carrier promotions and CEO John Legere’s ability to create a tremendous amount of publicity by bashing the competing carriers. T-Mobile US Inc (NASDAQ:TMUS) has declined 7.16% since July 13, 2015 and is downtrending.

“We set out to change this industry, we’re well on our way and we won’t stop”, Legere said in a release. “Cash capital expenditures for 2016 are expected to be in the range of $4.5 to $4.8 billion”.

Bellevue, Wash.-based T-Mobile had already announced last month that it added 2.1 million customers in the quarter.

When asked whether it would consider launching its own content streaming service akin to Verizon’s go90 product, T-Mobile executives said they would let consumer demand dictate their next moves.