Yahoo Finance Is T-Mobile’s Postpaid Growth Coming from AT&T and Verizon?
How Has T-Mobile Stacked Up against Its Peers Recently?
T-Mobile’s postpaid subscriber growth
T-Mobile (TMUS) has had the fastest-growing postpaid subscriber base among the top four US wireless carriers. These carriers include Verizon (VZ), AT&T (T), and Sprint (S).
Recently, at the MoffettNathanson Media & Communications Summit, J. Braxton Carter, TMUS’s chief financial officer and executive vice president, highlighted the US wireless players from which TMUS is getting its postpaid customers.
Talking about postpaid customer acquisitions, Carter said, “Where are they coming from? Just by simple number, the majority of it is coming from AT&T and Verizon.”
He added, “With AT&T, again, looking at the results from a post-paid voice standpoint, being the primary contributor, followed by Verizon and then, to a much lesser extent, Sprint just given their size of scale in the marketplace.”
Growth of T-Mobile’s postpaid subscribers versus peers in 1Q16
T-Mobile’s postpaid customer base has been growing significantly compared to the postpaid customer bases of its US peers. By the end of 1Q16, its number of postpaid customers had risen by ~15.6% YoY (year-over-year) to ~32.7 million.
By the end of the same period, the number of postpaid subscribers of Verizon and AT&T had risen by ~4.4% and ~1.3% YoY, respectively. By the end of the quarter, the companies had ~107.2 million and ~77.1 million postpaid subscribers, respectively.
Sprint Platform’s postpaid base rose by ~4.2% YoY to reach ~31 million by the end of the same quarter.
For diversified exposure to T-Mobile, you may want to consider the iShares U.S. Telecommunications ETF (IYZ). TMUS made up ~5.3% of IYZ at the end of April 2016. Note that IYZ had exposure of ~29.2% to the top four US wireless carriers on the same date.
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