T-Mobile on Thursday published its consolidated financial report for the fourth quarter of 2017, revealing another quarter of strong performance across most segments. The Bellevue, Washington-based wireless carrier recorded $10.8 billion in revenue with $2.7 billion in profit over the three-month period ending December 31, by far its most lucrative quarter of 2017. The firm’s total net income for the full year amounted to $4.5 billion, having been generated on a revenue of $40.6 billion.
T-Mobile added 1.9 million net customers during the quarter, boasting 5.7 million new subscribers in total over the course of the last year. Branded postpaid net additions amounted to 1.1 million, with prepaid net additions being the only somewhat declining indicator as T-Mobile recorded 149,000 of them in the final quarter after boasting more than 700,000 such adds in the first nine months of 2017. The mobile service provider’s churn rate is also on a slight decline, standing at 1.18-percent in the final quarter of the last year, which was also its average for the entirety of 2017. T-Mobile claims it strengthened its 4G LTE network enough to cover 322 million people by the turn of the year, adding that it’s now targeting 325 million people and 2.5 million square miles by the end of the current year. The firm also boasted about its general network performance, being quick to point out that it’s still offering the fastest network in the country with average download speeds of over 30Mbps. The company is set to accelerate its 600MHz deployment over the course of 2018 and is also likely to continue opening new retail locations, with 2,800 T-Mobile and MetroPCS stores being established in 2017.
While not providing a prediction for its net income in 2018, the telecom giant still mentioned a number of optimistic forecasts for the year, including up to three million net customer additions and cash expenditures in the range between $4.9 billion and $5.3 billion. The investments will also include capital expenditures meant to support T-Mobile’s 5G deployment efforts, with the firm still planning to start large-scale buildouts in 2019 and having the goal of offering nationwide 5G coverage by 2020. T-Mobile stock ended over $62.50 on Wednesday and is likely to go up once trading at Nasdaq starts at 9:30 AM EST.