The nation’s fourth-largest carrier continues to experience the side-effects of remaining the sole major U.S. telco without Apple’s popular iPhone. The company this morning reported third-quarter earnings and the results are depressing. It lost 492,000 contract customers, down from the 557,000 loss in the June quarter but also up over the year-ago quarter when it reported loss of 389,000 contracts.
As a result, revenue for the quarter shrank to $4.9 billion, a 6.4 percent decline, while service revenue experienced an 8.7 percent drop…
T-Mobile ended the quarter with 33.3 million customers.
A media release points the blaming finger directly at the iPhone 5 launch, which has caused some customers to defect to rival AT&T, Verizon and Sprint, which all carry the sought-after device.
T-Mobile’s 4G network modernization plan is“well underway”. The company began lighting up first HSPA+ markets in Q3. The speedy, iPhone-friendly 1900MHz HSPA+ service is now available to customers in five major areas:Las Vegasand Kansas City, in addition toWashington D.C., Baltimore and Houstonmarkets.
The company also added Nokia’s Lumia 810, two Windows 8 smartphones and Samsung’s Galaxy Note 2 to its device lineup, upping as well its advertising expenditure to pay forflashy commercialswhich wrongly promote 3G HSPA+ network as “4G”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=pczODHEO23I
Here’s another one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfLD4rx0Ffs&feature=plcp
The carrier last month announced amerger with MetroPCSin an effort tograb Sprint’s prepaid marketshare. The combined spectrum holdings of T-Mobile and MetroPCS will enable a deeper LTE network deployment,“with a clear path toward at least 20 by 20 MHz of 4G LTE in many areas of the country”, the carrier maintains.
Advertising-wise, the company went from this…
Obviously, none of the above was enough of an incentive to keep folks from defecting to Apple-friendly carriers.
I guess thatiPhone 5 response plandidn’t work as planned…
