T-Mobile US added another 1.3 million new customers in the third quarter, its 18th straight period with more than 1 million net customer additions, bringing its total to more 70 million customers.
Revenue at the Bellevue, Wash.-based company climbed 8 percent to $10 billion. Profits rose 50 percent to $550 million. T-Mobile added 817,000 branded postpaid customers, saying it expects to lead the U.S. wireless industry in the growth of this coveted class of wireless customer for the seventh straight quarter.
However, analysts won’t be able to quiz T-Mobile CEO John Legere or other executives about the numbers. The company skipped its quarterly call, publishing a video message from Legere instead amid widespread speculation about merger negotiations between T-Mobile and its smaller wireless rival Sprint.
“With all the rumors and speculation out there, we decided that we wanted to make sure you all saw and focused on our Q3 results, and not just on the rumors and speculation that seem to fill the news every day,” says Legere in the video below, before running through the company’s results for the quarter.
Costs from T-Mobile’s latest “Un-Carrier” initiative, providing free Netflix subscriptions to new and existing T-Mobile One family plan customers, didn’t have a noticeable impact on results. The company said costs from the program would be reflected as a reduction service revenues, which actually rose 7 percent overall to a record $7.6 billion in the quarter.
T-Mobile raised its outlook for customer additions for the full year, saying it now expects 3.3 to 3.6 million new customers, vs. a range of 3 to 3.3 million previously.
Verizon reported quarterly earnings last week, including a net increase of 603,000 retail wireless postpaid connections. Verizon Wireless revenues were $21.6 billion for the third quarter, a decline of 2.4 percent but still more than twice T-Mobile’s revenue for the same period.
AT&T reports earnings Tuesday, and Sprint reports Wednesday.
