The telecom company’s third-quarter results were mostly positive.
(Photo: Reuters)
san francisco In September, T-Mobile US became the world’s most valuable mobile communications company. Now the Deutsche Telekom subsidiary has been able to extend its lead thanks to strong quarterly figures. In after-hours trading Thursday, T-Mobile was worth more than $180 billion compared to rival Verizon’s $152 billion and AT&T’s just $128 billion.
T-Mobile was also able to outperform its competitors in terms of the number of new customers and raised its forecast for the third time this year. For the year as a whole, the number of new contract customers will add up to 6.2 to 6.4 instead of 6.0 to 6.3 million, said T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert. In the third quarter, Deutsche Telekom’s US subsidiary added 854,000 users, more than 100,000 more than expected.
“Our brand strength in terms of price leadership has never been better. And the price increases of our competitors have helped us,” said Sievert. While Verizon and AT&T had made a number of tariffs more expensive, Sievert had promised its customers a “price brake”. Rivals AT&T and Verizon only gained 708,000 and 8,000 customers, respectively.
However, T-Mobile’s revenue fell short of analyst forecasts at $19.48 billion in the past quarter. Profit was $508 million, down from a loss of $108 million in the same period last year. The company’s stock rose more than 4 percent in after-hours trading.
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So far, T-Mobile has largely been limited to mobile phone offers. This is set to change with the expansion of the 5G real-time mobile network. T-Mobile already offers broadband solutions so that private customers and companies have fixed Internet access in their homes and offices.
The product is particularly popular with small and medium-sized companies, said business customer boss Callie Field. “We’ve seen double-digit quarter-on-quarter growth over the past four quarters,” Field said. Total revenue from business customers increased 20 percent year-on-year in the third quarter.
The data from the USA are a positive signal for Deutsche Telekom. The US subsidiary contributes around two thirds to sales and more than half to the operating profit of the Dax group. Deutsche Telekom will present figures for the third quarter on November 10th.
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