T-Mobile USA today broke a bit with tradition announcing preliminary first quarter results showing the carrier’s first branded customer growth in years, bolstered by improved postpaid churn and continued strength in its no-contract offering.
The carrier reported that it added 579,000 total customers to its network during the first quarter, which was well above the 187,000 customers the carrier added during the same period of 2012. Breaking down the latest numbers, T-Mobile USA noted that its branded services managed to add 3,000 customers during the quarter, compared with a loss of 262,000 branded customers in 2012. T-Mobile USA’s management noted that the positive branded growth was its first in four years.
The most recent growth was all on the back of the carrier’s prepaid offerings, which added 202,000 customers during the quarter, just offsetting the loss of 199,000 contract customers. While prepaid growth was down year-over-year from the 249,000 subscribers the carrier added during the first quarter of 2012, T-Mobile USA managed to trim contract losses from 510,000 lost during the first quarter of 2012. T-Mobile USA noted that this improvement was seen in its churn results, with postpaid churn dropping from 2.5% in 2012 to 1.9% during the first quarter of this year.
As has been witnessed during previous quarters, T-Mobile USA’s wholesale partners continued to post the majority of growth for the carrier. T-Mobile USA noted that its wholesale operations added 576,000 net customers during the quarter, compared with 449,000 customers added through wholesale operations during the first quarter of 2012.
Analysts attributed T-Mobile USA’s branded turn around to increased marketing efforts, plans to begin offering Apple products and improved porting trends in relation to Sprint Nextel.
T-Mobile USA announced last month plans to drop all of its contact offerings in favor of strict no-contract rate plans. The carrier is also set to begin offering Apple’s iPhone 5 next week, which should further entice potential customers as well as keep current customers from fleeing. T-Mobile USA is scheduled to release full first quarter results on May 8.
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