T-Mobile USA’s latest earnings report shows the carrier closed out the final quarter of 2012 with 33.4 million net customers, a one percent increase annually. But total revenue for the fourth quarter was $4.9 billion, about a 5 percent decrease from the $5.2 billion the company posted in the same quarter of 2011.
T-Mobile attributed the customer growth to continued expansion in branded prepaid and wholesale, noting the company saw decreases in both branded and branded contract churn rates annually. Still, a decline in branded contract customers was cited as a reason for the sales slide, although the company said that was offset some by increased adoption of data plans by both contract and prepaid customers. It’s worth noting as well that CapEx for the fourth quarter jumped 63 percent annually, from 551 million to 898 million on account of T-Mobile’s network modernization efforts.
T-Mobile also reported a 9.2 percent annual decrease in blended ARPU but that was attributed to increased interest and adoption of the company’s value plans.
Looking ahead, T-Mobile has a big potential merger with MetroPCS and will be able to add the iPhone to its stable soon. CTO Ray Neville last month told investors at a conference that T-Mobile is seeing nearly 100,000 unlocked iPhones per month port over to their network from AT&T.
As of 8:30 a.m. CT, Deutsch Telekom’s stock was down 1.25 percent.