T-Mobile’s moves to reinvent itself, and in someways reinvent the cellular phone industry, look as if they may finally be paying off, as the company reported its second quarter earnings today, showing a surprising $391 million profit for the quarter. This of course lead T-Mobile CEO John Legere to boast a bit.
“We have completely reversed T-Mobile’s trajectory and started a revolution that is changing the rules in wireless,” said Legere. “Now — with more than 50 million customers, 1.5 million customers added this quarter and five quarters in a row of over 1 million net new customers — we are proud to be the fastest-growing wireless company in America.”
While the carriers numbers do tend to back up Legere’s boasts, with T-Mobile leading the industry in both revenue and subscriber growth, the company still has a ways to go, as it still lags behind AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint. Although Sprint has to be sweating a bit when it checks its rearview mirror.
The Magenta network’s strong financial performance was driven in most part by a licensing deal with Verizon, who paid the company $731 million to acquire wireless spectrum.
While T-Mobile’s Uncarrier program has added subscribers and revenue to the network, it doesn’t do much for their immediate profit picture, as the program offers to pay new customers early termination fees for leaving their old carrier. T-Mobile hope this will lead to keeping the new customers around for the long haul, thereby leading to long-term profits.
