Just like last quarter, T-Mobile has once again topped one million net customer adds, pointing out 648,000 net postpaid subscriber adds for its third quarter.
CEO John Legere explained in a statement that, “Part of our customer momentum comes from the MetroPCS acquisition, adding that T-Mobile expects to expand MetroPCS into 15 additional markets by November 21.
The subscriber growth led T-Mobile to increase its 2013 guidance for net postpaid additions to 1.6 million to 1.8 million from 1 million to 1.2 million.
Still, despite the rapid subscriber growth and inclusion of MetroPCS, combined revenue growth remained fairly staid, rising 0.6 percent over the previous quarter. But service revenues grew 8 percent over the previous quarter, which the carrier said reflected the postpaid sub growth.
As T-Mobile had announced last month, its LTE network is now covering 203 million people. Legere again reiterated he expects “substantial deployments” of 20 x 20 MHz LTE in 2014, citing downlink speeds of 147 Mbps for that network.
CTO Neville Ray said during the Q&A that the company’s 20 x 20 MHz LTE deployment could drag into 2015 in some markets but that he was pleased with the 10 x 10 MHz LTE deployment progress.
The third quarter for T-Mobile marked further “Un-carrier” moves for the carrier including its announcement of unlimited international roaming for its customers. That followed the launch of its Jump! early upgrade program, which hasn’t led to ARPU growth yet for the carrier. But T-Mobile insisted as penetration for its Simple Choice plans increase that ARPU for the carrier will stabilize and reminded the audience that Jump! replaced an insurance program and that it was not necessarily designed for ARPU growth.
“It’s pretty clear now that family plans were not created for the benefit of the family,” said Legere, calling it a pain point that T-Mobile planned to solve for the individual members of the family and hinting toward future possible “un-carrier” moves.
T-Mobile’s stock was up more than three percent in pre-market trading as of 8:51 a.m. CT.
