Leap Wireless International and its Cricket Communications subsidiary said there were 385,000 net customer additions in the fourth quarter of 2008 and 941,000 for the year.

Leap now has 3.84 million customers, well behind competitors MetroPCS at 5.4 million and Virgin Mobile USA at 5.38 million.  However all three companies are dwarfed by America Movil’s Tracfone, which reported 9.5 million subscribers at the end of 2007 and added 935,000 more in the first three quarters of 2008.

Still, “We are pleased with the Company’s end-of-year performance in the midst of a weakened economy,” CEO Doug Hutcheson said in a prepared statement. “Customer buying patterns throughout the holiday season continued as expected, although we anticipate that lower-than-expected purchases of additional services may impact ARPU on a sequential quarterly basis,” he added.