T-Mobile just announced their earnings for the first quarter of 2017, and they have added another million to their network. The third largest carrier posted 1.1 million net additions in the quarter. Which means that they have now added at least 1 million net adds every quarter for the past four years. That’s nothing to sneeze at for T-Mobile. There were 914,000 total branded postpaid net additions, 798,000 branded postpaid phone net additions, 386,000 branded prepaid net additions, and the company posted “record-low” branded postpaid phone churn of just 1.18%. That’s down 15 basis points year-over-year and down 10 basis points from the previous quarter. Considering the first quarter is typically a tough one after the holiday season, these are still great numbers from T-Mobile.
When it comes to cash, T-Mobile brought in $7.3 billion in services revenue, and $9.6 billion in total revenues for the quarter. Both numbers are up 11% year-over-year. T-Mobile brought in $698 million in net income, which is up 46% year-over-year, and earnings per share or EPS is $0.80, that’s a 43% increase. The company’s adjusted EBITDA is $2.7 billion, and net cash provided by operating activities of $1.7 billion. Finally, their free cash flow is $185 million.
T-Mobile’s outlook for the rest of the year is still pretty strong. Their guidance for postpaid net additions has increase to 2.8 to 3.5 million from 2.4 to 3.4 million. They are looking to maintain Adjusted EBITDA of $10.4 to $10.8 billion, and that includes leasing revenues of $0.8 to $0.9 billion. Cash Capital Expenditures is expected to be maintained at $4.8 to $5.1 billion. And T-Mobile did not provide a forward looking statement on Net income, which is normal for T-Mobile.
Of course, all of this comes on the heels of T-Mobile cleaning up huge at the FCC’s incentive auction, spending a whopping $7.99 billion and picking up 31MHz of 600MHz spectrum across the entire US. T-Mobile has said that they are looking to get this spectrum deployed as quickly as possible. T-Mobile says that the outcome of this auction has quadrupled their low-band spectrum holdings, which is important for 4G LTE, and will be even more important once 5G rolls around. With low-band spectrum, T-Mobile is able to bring coverage to more places, and break through buildings’ walls with ease. Which is why this is such a big deal for the company.