T-Mobile Added 1 Million Customers in Fourth Quarter -- Update
January 07 2020 - 3:25PM
Dow Jones News
By Drew FitzGerald and Dave Sebastian
T-Mobile US Inc. said it added one million of its most
profitable cellphone customers in the fourth quarter, driving the
carrier's subscriber base closer to its larger rivals' as it awaits
a ruling on its proposed merger with Sprint Corp.
The Bellevue, Wash., company issued preliminary results showing
a net gain of one million postpaid phone customers during the last
three months of 2019, plus 77,000 prepaid subscribers. Postpaid
subscribers are important to carriers because they tend to pay
their monthly bills regularly and are less likely to switch
providers.
T-Mobile ended the year with about 67.9 million customers,
excluding "wholesale customers" who pay another brand that uses its
cellphone network.
T-Mobile's proposed $26 billion merger with rival Sprint has
overshadowed the company's steady growth over the past two years.
The deal, announced in 2018, remains in limbo after a coalition of
state attorneys general led by California and New York challenged
the transaction on antitrust grounds.
Lawyers for both sides are scheduled to deliver closing
arguments in the case on Jan. 15, following a two-week December
trial that featured testimony from top executives at T-Mobile and
Sprint as well as their corporate parents, Deutsche Telekom AG and
SoftBank Group Corp. A federal judge is expected to rule on the
case in the coming weeks.
Combining T-Mobile with its smaller rival would create a third
major wireless provider with roughly as many customers as Verizon
Communications Inc. and AT&T Inc., the country's No. 1 and No.
2 cellphone carriers, respectively.
T-Mobile posted its early customer tally ahead of an expected
appearance at an annual Citigroup investor conference Tuesday. The
company hasn't yet released last year's earnings results.
Write to Drew FitzGerald at andrew.fitzgerald@wsj.com and Dave
Sebastian at dave.sebastian@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
January 07, 2020 16:10 ET (21:10 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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