T-Mobile on Monday afternoon unleashed its earnings report for the first quarter 2017, and it delivered another quarter of strong results. The Un-carrier beat estimates for both net adds and churn, and gave a glimpse into its 600 MHz rollout plans.
Here are a few hard and fast stats from the report before we dig into the results further after the earnings call.
General Stats:
-
Postpaid net additions of 914,000 beat consensus estimates of 843,000.
-
798,000 postpaid phone net adds beat consensus forecasts of 725,000.
-
The Un-carrier also pulled in 386,000 new prepaid customers, driven by MetroPCS.
-
Churn of 1.18 percent was down 15 bps year over year and 10 bps sequentially. That figure came in well under consensus estimates of 1.32 percent.
-
At the end of the first quarter, 71 percent of spectrum (not counting 600 MHz) was being used for 4G LTE, up from 54 percent the year prior. T-Mobile said it plans to continue to refarm 2G and 3G spectrum.
-
The upgrade rate was flat year over year at 7 percent, though down from 10 percent in the fourth quarter.
-
The number of smartphones sold or leased was 8.6 million units, down from 9.9 million units in the fourth quarter and 8.8 million units in the first quarter 2016.
Financial Stats:
-
Service revenue was up 11 percent to $7.3 billion, marking T-Mobile’s 12th consecutive quarter of growth.
-
Total revenue was also up 11 percent $9.6 billion, also up for the 15th quarter in a row.
-
Net income was up 46 percent to $698 million.
-
Postpaid phone ARPU was up 2.9 percent year over year to $47.53, but down 1.7 percent sequentially.
600 MHz Plan:
- T-Mobile expects to have 10 MHz covering more than one million square miles clear this year.
- Initial deployments will begin in 2017, with handsets becoming available in the fourth quarter – just in time for the holiday season.
- CTO Neville Ray said the 600 MHz auction winnings increased T-Mobile’s spectrum trove by 39 percent.
- Ray said T-Mobile currently has lowband holdings that cover 272 million POPs and noted the target areas for the first 600 MHz rollouts will be in areas where the Un-carrier hasn’t successfully launched lowband to date.