T-Mobile’s Recent Prepaid Growth with MetroPCS
T-Mobile Updates at the Morgan Stanley European TMT Conference
T-Mobile’s prepaid growth
In earlier parts of this series, we learned about the robust growth in T-Mobile’s (TMUS) postpaid customer base during 3Q15. We also learned about the YoY (year-over-year) improvement in the telecom (telecommunication) company’s postpaid phone customer retention metric during the quarter.
During the Morgan Stanley European Technology, Media, and Telecom Conference held on November 12, 2015, T-Mobile’s chief financial officer J. Braxton Carter talked about the recent prepaid customer growth of the company from MetroPCS.
According to Carter, “We also expanded the MetroPCS footprint, more than doubling it to over 200 million POPs, and we’ve seen an explosion of growth, with MetroPCS as our flagship prepaid brand.”
Carter added, “The third quarter reported the strongest prepaid growth period since TMUS was formed, almost a tripling of the prepaid net additions compared to the prior quarter. And we are continuing the expansion.”
T-Mobile’s prepaid customer base grew by 6.9% YoY to reach ~17.2 million at the end of 3Q15. The growth in this customer base picked up the pace during 3Q15.
As you can see in the above chart, T-Mobile had net customer additions in this segment of ~411,000 in 3Q14. The figure for 3Q15 was ~595,000.
Sequential growth in T-Mobile prepaid customer net additions was even more significant during the quarter. In 2Q15, these customer additions were only ~178,000.
Prepaid net additions of other top US wireless carriers in 3Q15
The top four US wireless carriers are AT&T (T), Verizon (VZ), T-Mobile, and Sprint (S). Verizon saw net losses of ~80,000 in its prepaid customer base during 3Q15.
Meanwhile, AT&T saw a net gain of 466,000 prepaid customers during the quarter. Sprint Platform had net losses of 363,000 prepaid customers during the quarter.
Instead of taking direct exposure to T-Mobile’s stock, you may consider taking diversified exposure to the telecom company by investing in the iShares US Telecommunications ETF (IYZ).
IYZ had ~5.8% of its holdings in T-Mobile at the end of September 2015.
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