The fourth-largest carrier T-Mobile is out with its preliminary fourth quarter earnings on Wednesday, and they show it might not be the fourth-largest carrier for long. The mobile carrier, lead by scrappy CEO John Legere, posted a total of 8.3 million total net customer additions in 2014, providing the biggest year of growth for the company yet – 89 percent from the prior year.
T-Mobile added 2.1 million total net customer additions, 1.3 million branded postpaid net customer additions, 1.0 million branded postpaid phone net customer additions, and 266,000 branded prepaid net customer additions in the fourth quarter of 2014, its preliminary earnings report said on Wednesday. Legere is calling the year a record breaker.
“We continued to take share from our competitors and attracted 8.3 million net customers in 2014 who were looking for value, simplicity and transparency,” Legere said. “While my competitors are hiding behind less valuable connected device subscriber additions and managing profit expectations to the downside, T-Mobile delivered over 2.1 million customers in Q4, while managing the balance between growth and profitability. Needless to say, 2014 was a record breaking year.”
The T-Mobile US stock is up close to two percent in regular trading on Wednesday.
T-Mobile, with Legere leading the way, has been trying to reshape the wireless industry by ending two-year contracts, and adding plans to allow customers to upgrade phones when they’d like, unlimited data, messages, and voice, and free data roaming in worldwide.
At the end of 2014, John Legere promised it will beat Sprint to become the third-largest carrier in the US during 2015. With these numbers, T-Mobile is looking mighty close to passing them, if it hasn’t already.
[T-Mobile]