T-Mobile USA Lost More Subscribers in Q2, But at a Slower Pace
T-Mobile USA lost 50,000 subscribers in Q2, the first full quarter since AT&T agreed to buy it. The loss was an improvement from the previous quarter when it lost 99,000 customers. The U.S. remains a difficult market for parent company Deutsche Telekom, whose profit fell 27 percent year-over-year to $496 million, said CEO René Obermann during a conference call Thursday.
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DT will continue its strategy at T-Mobile USA with HSPA+ expansion and continue data growth, said Obermann. The U.S. carrier posted profit of $212 million, down 41 percent year-over-year. Contract net customer losses were 281,000 in the quarter, an improvement of 26 percent from such losses in Q1 of 2011, and also better than Q2 2010. The sequential improvement in net contract customer losses was primarily due to the introduction of new unlimited rate plans in Q2 and faster growth in their connected device business, executives said. The year-over-year decline in contract customers was due to intense competitive pressures in the U.S. wireless marketplace, they said. Blended churn, reflecting postpaid and prepaid customers, decreased to 3.3 percent from 3.4 percent in the year-ago quarter. While contract churn continues to be high, the company is focused on upgrading its customers to higher quality products and concentrating on retaining our loyal customers, T-Mobile USA CEO Phillip Humm said. It had 33.6 million customers on June 30.
It seems that T-Mobile isn’t doing too badly, all things considered, and particularly with the weak U.S. dollar, Public Knowledge said. It said that’s despite AT&T’s push on the takeover and other competitors trying to take advantage of the situation. T-Mobile’s loss of customers has slowed and the data/smartphone business is still growing, the nonprofit group said. It opposes AT&T/T-Mobile.
In addition to lagging revenue in the U.S., DT’s profit decrease was affected by one-time charges for early retirements in Germany. DT said business at its European operations is improving, though the economic situation in Greece and Romania remains difficult.