T-Mobile has been adding a whole lot of customers lately. Last year, they added over a million customers in each of the four quarters. And in some quarters, they beat everyone. Now we’re hearing from some analysts that T-Mobile may beat Verizon, Sprint and AT&T in handset subscriber add-ons for the first quarter. This is according to some financial analysts at Wells Fargo. While T-Mobile may beat them in handsets, the others will be making big numbers in tablet additions. In a research note from Wells Fargo, they stated that the first quarter earnings season will be “somewhat uneventful”. Meaning they aren’t expecting too much to come out of the earnings for the first quarter. According to Jennifer Fritzsche, Eric Luebchow and Caleb Stein.
“We expect most of the share gain on the handset side to be seen from T-Mobile US – as we would expect negative handset adds from the other carriers,” Wells Fargo Analysts wrote. “We do not expect a large change in guidance any major change of guidance from the carriers. However, given it is Sprint’s 4th fiscal quarter, we would expect more detail to come regarding its outlook for its 2015 fiscal year.”
These same analysts had expected T-Mobile to add around 1.03 million postpaid customers in the first quarter of the year. That’s slightly lower than what Wall Street was estimating at 1.08 million. T-Mobile had forecasted that they would be extremely promotional in the first quarter, and they have been. In fact, they even held an Uncarrier event in NYC. They’ve been promoting their Data Stash initiative as well, which has gotten some really positive responses. The analysts did also state that while these moves should bring in solid customer growth in the quarter, it will likely come at the cost of lower profitability.
Remember T-Mobile is still doing their “Carrier Freedom” initiative. Where they are paying your fees to get away from your current carrier and join T-Mobile. That’s your contract or your phone. They’ll pay up to $650 in fees to get you onto Magenta. And of course, that also plays into profitability for the nation’s fourth largest carrier.