John Legere
John Legere at the 2014 GeekWire Summit.

tmobileT-Mobile CEO John Legere continues to transform the wireless carrier, announcing today first quarter results that included a record-low churn rate of 1.3 percent, with 1.8 million net additions to its customer count. That represented the eighth consecutive quarter of more than one million net additions.

The growth brings T-Mobile to more than 56.8 million customers, putting the Bellevue, Wash.-based company in a likely position to claim the undisputed title as the nation’s third-largest wireless carrier, surpassing Sprint, which reports earnings May 5.

T-Mobile revenue.
T-Mobile revenue.

Meanwhile, T-Mobile revenue jumped to $7.8 billion — a 13.1 percent compared to the same period last year.

Even so, T-Mobile posted a $63 million loss for the quarter, missing Wall Street’s estimates. The 9 cent per share loss compared to a 19 cent per share loss for the same period last year. Analysts expected a loss of seven cents per share this quarter.

The company did say that it expects earnings per share to be positive in all of the remaining quarters of the year.

service-t-mobile“We’ve had eight consecutive quarters with more than one million total net customer additions proving that customers want value,” said Legere in a release. “We expect to once again capture all of the industry’s postpaid phone growth in Q1 and we’ve done it while delivering an all-time record low 1.3% churn.”

T-Mobile finished the quarter with $3 billion in cash — down from $5.3 billion at the end of 2014.

The subscriber and revenue momentum is being driven by Legere, an outspoken leader who has set out to shake up the staid wireless industry since his arrival in September 2012.

The stock is up 17 percent in the past 12 months.

Here’s a look at the company’s postpaid net additions over the past five quarters, with the company noting that it represents a clear “indicator of the continued success of the Un-carrier initiatives and strong uptake of promotions for services and devices.”

t-mobile-chart11

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