T-Mobile US has overtaken rival AT&T as the second-largest wireless provider in the United States.
T-Mobile has overtaken AT&T across post-paid and pre-paid phones customers. T-Mobile reported 98.3 million customers in those categories, while AT&T had nearly 93 million post-paid and pre-paid subscribers in its second quarter.
T-Mobile added 1,245,000 customers – 1,112,000 post-paid customers and 253,000 pre-paid customers in Q2 2020.
T-Mobile’s post-paid phone customers increased to 65.1 million, overtaking AT&T in total post-paid phone customers.
“Surpassing AT&T to become #2 was a huge milestone to kick off Q2,” said Mike Sievert, T-Mobile CEO in a media statement. “We’re setting our sights on #1 – in customer choice and customers’ hearts.”
Subscriber figures between U.S. carriers can be difficult to compare given the variety of plans offered. AT&T declined to comment. Verizon continues to lead in the United States telecom service provider market.
T-Mobile added 253,000 net new phone subscribers who pay a monthly bill, compared with 710,000 additions a year earlier.
The carrier, which completed its merger with Sprint in April, reported the quarterly results as a combined company for the first time.
T-Mobile said that more than 10 percent of network traffic from Sprint’s post-paid customers have been migrated to T-Mobile.
The carrier has sought to attract budget-constrained customers with its cheaper phone plans after the pandemic left millions of people in the United States unemployed.
T-Mobile’s second-quarter revenue rose 61 percent to $17.67 billion, driven by the Sprint merger and continued customer growth at T-Mobile.
T-Mobile’s second-quarter net income fell to $110 million, or 9 cents per share, from $939 million, or $1.09 per share, a year earlier, due to Sprint merger costs.
Merger update
The company has unified employees and customers under one brand, converting thousands of legacy Sprint stores to magenta and adding the tools and systems to serve all customers in all stores.
T-Mobile said it has America’s largest 5G network service — in more than 7,500 cities and towns covering more than 250 million people across 1.3 million square miles, more than double AT&T’s geographic coverage and exponentially more than Verizon.
T-Mobile controls 319 MHz of low and mid-band spectrum. This spectrum position is nearly double that of AT&T and nearly three times that of Verizon. In addition, T-Mobile controls 1,160 MHz of mmWave spectrum nationwide, more than AT&T.
