T-Mobile U.S. Inc. reported a profit that beat the estimates from Wall Street, mainly from savings on account of its takeover of Sprint. The results buoyed investors who were expecting slower growth in revenue and subscribers.
As per Bloomberg news, the QTR 3 profit per share came to 55 cents against the expected 51cents. On Tuesday, T-Mobile reported a rise in revenue to $ 19.6 billion, still falling short of the estimated $ 20.1 billion average on Wall Street.
The mobile carrier faces tough competition from competitors who offered free phones, creating headwinds for T-Mobile subscribers’ growth. The promotions by rivals suggested a fierce fight for acquiring new phone buyers and subscribers.
T-Mobile shares rose by 2.8% to $119 in aftermarket trading after the results were declared. The overall prices of the company shares have declined 14% in 2021. Rivals Verizon Communications Inc. and AT&T Inc reported an 11 % and 12 % decline, respectively.
The second-largest wireless company in the U.S. closed the quarter with 673,000 new phone customers and 1.3 million new monthly subscribers. This was short of analysts’ estimates of 760,000 new phone customers and 1.33 million subscribers for T-Mobile.
AT & T, which offered free phones to existing and new customers, added 928,000 phone customers and 1.2 million subscribers.
T-Mobile is expecting to close the fiscal year with a minimum of 5.1 million regular customers and a maximum of 5.3 million. This is slightly higher than the forecast at the bottom end of the range against analyst expectations of 5.16 million new additions.
The acquiring of Sprint added 90% of their customer to the T-Mobile network, up from 80% three months ago. The company expects the merger to benefit with additional revenue and savings to $3.5 billion in the current year. This is more than a $300 million increase from the previous projections.
T-Mobile is ahead of Verizon and AT&T by a year in 5G network expansion, but the advantage has been threatened by holiday promotion discounts of $1000 per phone from rivals.
Both Verizon and AT&T are deploying their own midland 5G networks and closing the gap.
In the last quarter, T-Mobile said that home internet set a new record even as it added 586,000 customers and hotspots. It is now targeting 500,000 new additions in the home user segment. In April, T-Mobile launched a $60 a month subscriber plan which provides fast internet connections in homes. In October, it reduced it to $50 per month and added 150,000 new customers in the broadband segment.
The company’s interaction with its investors saw executives addressing the data breach in August, which saw customers’ personal information exposed to cybercriminals.
Mike Sievert, CEO of T-Mobile, said, “Our top priority is to protect customer data.” He said that the company has set up a Cyber transformation office to address the system’s vulnerability to hackers”.
