T-Mobile’s preliminary results for the fourth quarter of 2017 beat Wall Street expectations for postpaid customers and phone additions.
The carrier reported a net addition of nearly 1.1 million postpaid customers, including 891,000 postpaid phones, along with postpaid phone churn of 1.18 percent in the latest fiscal quarter.
Wall Street analysts had projected just more than 1 million net postpaid additions, as well as 810,000 postpaid phones and postpaid churn of 1.27 percent.
The company also noted that initial full-year results showed that more than 5 million additional net customers joined the carrier for the fourth year in a row, including 3.6 million postpaid customers.
“It just proves that putting customers first quarter after quarter and delivering on our promise of the fastest 4G LTE network in the country is a winning combination for everyone,” T-Mobile CEO John Legere said in a statement.
Prepaid customers, meanwhile, fell short of projections at a net addition of 149,000.
Analysts from MoffettNathanson and Wells Fargo were more optimistic in their projections than the Wall Street consensus and said the preliminary results were promising for both T-Mobile and the wireless segment overall.
Wells Fargo Senior Analyst Jennifer Fritzsche wrote in a note that although postpaid additions were down compared to the fourth quarter of 2016, that pattern is expected throughout the industry. Postpaid churn, meanwhile, was down 5 basis points from the fourth quarter and 10 basis points year-over-year.
“Another impressive quarter of subscriber growth for [T-Mobile], who will likely again lead the industry in postpaid net phone adds in Q4 by a substantial margin,” Fritzsche wrote.
MoffettNathanson founding partner Craig Moffett added in a note that the results reflected T-Mobile’s strong position despite the collapse of its proposed merger with Sprint. He wrote that they should also ease concerns about the impact of Comcast on the wireless sector.
“T-Mobile’s continued subscriber growth, in the context of a relatively benign competitive backdrop, is broadly confirmatory of the view that the wireless market is getting healthier, not sicker,” Moffett wrote.
T-Mobile plans to announce its full results for the quarter next month.
