The third quarter of the year ends on September 30th, which is tomorrow. And around the end of October we’ll start seeing some of the numbers from companies like AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, Verizon and others, to see how well they did during that three month period spanning July, August and September. Typically the third quarter is a bit slow. With the fourth quarter being a huge one due to the holidays and most of the smartphones are released in Q1 and bought in Q2. However, AT&T said today, to Re/Code that they expect to add about 2 million customers in the quarter.
Some of you may look at that wondering if AT&T is talking connected cars, smartphones, or what. Because in previous quarters, more than 80% of their net adds were connected cars. This is thanks to their partnerships with companies like GM, Audi, Volkswagen and others. So when you buy a car from one of those manufacturers, you automatically get a 4G LTE plan from AT&T. So while AT&T is technically adding over a million cars, how many stick around is the real question. However, AT&T said today that a big number of these should be smartphones as well. AT&T and others have struggled to add more smartphones to their network thanks to T-Mobile taking all or almost all of the smartphone growth in recent quarters.
AT&T is also expecting to announce double-digit growth in revenue and profit for the quarter. AT&T will be announcing their quarterly earnings on October 22nd. Usually that’s around close of business, or 4pm EST. So we’ll be sure to keep everyone up to date with AT&T’s earnings. Their competitors should be announcing theirs around that same time as well. Although we don’t have any dates for Sprint, Verizon or T-Mobile just yet. Those dates should be available soon though.
The wireless industry has been pretty competitive in the last 2-3 years. Many people attribute that to T-Mobile disrupting the industry, but AT&T and Verizon didn’t have to follow suit, but they did. And thanks to that, the customers are benefiting heavily. Many people have seen their monthly wireless bills get cut almost in half. And many aren’t complaining either.