After years of steadily losing customers, T-Mobile has posted it’s strongest growth in four years, adding a net total of 1.1 million customers in the second quarter of fiscal 2013, and all it took to do it was the addition of the iPhone, and the radical “Un-Carrier” program.
T-Mobile’s second quarter, the results of which were reported on Thursday, was the company’s strongest growth in four years. The company touted the successful launch of Apple’s iPhone 5, as well as its new Simple Choice and Jump plans.
America’s fourth-largest carrier began offering the iPhone in April of this year, selling 500,000 units in less than a month. It was announced on Thursday that the iPhone tallied around 29% of the Magenta Network’s branded gross customer additions and smartphone upgrade sales since it’s spring launch.
T-Mobile’s attempt to break from the pack, with a program dubbed “Un-Carrier,” which no longer requires customers to keep their devices for two years before upgrading, has proven popular, says T-Mobile President and Chief Executive John Legere. “T-Mobile’s Un-carrier approach has clearly resonated with consumers. By fixing the things that drive them mad, like contracts and upgrades, and freeing them from the two-year sentences imposed on them by our competitors, they are choosing the new T-Mobile in unprecedented numbers”
T-Mobile’s plan was quickly followed by similar plans from both Verizon and AT&T.
T-Mobile was the last of the big four wireless carriers to offer the iPhone to its subscribers. Previous losses by the firm were attributed in part to their lack of an iPhone offering.
A recent survey by Consumer Intelligence Research Partners found that 28% of current T-Mobile subscribers are planning to upgrade devices in the coming year will get the iPhone.
The company’s acquisition of MetroPCS in May screwed with their financials a bit. Revenues rose from $4.68 billion to $6.23 billion, however much of this was from customers acquired from MetroPCS. Profits took a hit, with last year’s $107 million profit falling to a $16 million loss. The loss was attributed to promotional costs and initial subsidies on handsets which the company expects to get back later in the year.
