T-Mobile is not only adding millions of customers per quarter, but now the company is back in the green.
The Bellevue-based wireless carrier turned a profit of $391 million in the second quarter while adding another 1.5 million customers — its fifth consecutive quarter of subscriber growth.
The profit, which follows a $154 million loss in the first quarter and a $54 million loss in the year-ago quarter, was spurred in large part from a spectrum licensing deal with Verizon, which paid T-Mobile $731 million.
T-Mobile also passed the 50 million customer mark in the second quarter. That’s still far behind AT&T and Verizon, but T-Mobile is now within striking distance of Sprint’s 55 million subscribers.
“We have completely reversed T-Mobile’s trajectory and started a revolution that is changing the rules in wireless,” CEO John Legere said in a statement.
Legere has implemented a series of new offerings over the past year as part of T-Mobile’s “Uncarrier” strategy, which has included shifting customers away from the long-term contracts that have defined the wireless industry, offering early upgrades, free international data roaming, and paying early termination fees for people who switch to T-Mobile.
More recently, the company offered a deal that allowed people to test an iPhone on T-Mobile’s network for a week, and also launched a new program that gives customers unlimited music streaming without data limits.
“So T-Mobile US is in a very good place today,” Legere wrote in a blog post. “But this isn’t the destination. It’s a signpost telling us we’re heading in the right direction. We still have a lot of hard work to do to transform this industry. Pain points to eliminate. Customers to wow.”
T-Mobile is also in talks to be acquired by Sprint, which would combine the nation’s third and fourth-largest carriers. If an acquisition agreement is reached, and approved by regulators, Legere is reportedly in line to lead the combined company.
In his blog post, the CEO boasted about record-low churn levels, customer satisfaction awards and improvements in T-Mobile’s 4G LTE coverage.
“Nobody else delivers this kind of speed,” Legere wrote. “No one else is capable of lighting up new network technologies like this team. We can do this, because we’re not playing the phone company utility game. We’re playing the mobile Internet company game.”
T-Mobile’s stock — which is up 20 percent so far this year — was up more than five percent in early morning trading. The company is valued at $25 billion.
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