BELLEVUE, Wash.-T-Mobile USA Inc. reported a company-record 869,000 net customer additions for the third quarter comprised of more than 1 million net contract customer additions and a loss of 190,000 pre-pay subscribers. The quarterly net additions, which led the industry, were well ahead of the 372,700 the carrier added for the third quarter last year.
T-Mobile USA said it ended the quarter with 8.9 million customers, which includes 84 percent contract subscribers. Soothing fears that its dramatic subscriber additions were due to credit challenged customers on its Smart Access rate plans, T-Mobile noted those customers represented less than 5 percent of its customer base and were all required to submit a deposit.
Customer churn dropped from 5.1 percent last year to 4.2 percent this year, but was up from the 4.1 percent T-Mobile USA recorded during the second quarter. Average revenue per user increased slightly from $49 last year to $50 this year, while cash cost per user fell from $32 during the third quarter last year to $23 this year.
T-Mobile USA also reported $1.5 billion in total revenues for the quarter, an increase over the $1.3 billion it reported for the previous quarter and $930 million posted for the third quarter of 2001.
