T-Mobile added over 1.1 million new subscribers in Q1 2017

T-Mobile announced some good news today. The nation’s third largest wireless carrier revealed it had added a total of over 1.1 million new subscribers in the first quarter of 2017. T-Mobile said this was the 16th consecutive quarter that the carrier had added over 1 million new customers.

The carrier said that it added 914,000 postpaid subscribers during the quarter that ended on March 30, which included 798,000 postpaid phone additions. It also added 386,000 new prepaid subscribers, thanks to the continued growth of its no-contract subsidiary MetroPCS. The company’s churn rate was down to just 1.18 percent for the quarter, down 15 percent compared to the same period a year ago. Revenues for the first quarter came in at $9.6 billion, up 11 percent from the same period a year ago, and net income came in at $698 million, up a whopping 46 percent.

T-Mobile managed to gain customers even as its biggest rivals, Verizon Wireless and AT&T, both introduced new unlimited plans during the first quarter of 2017. T-Mobile, in turn, made a number of adjustments to its own unlimited plan to compete. The carrier also recently announced it had acquired about 45 percent of the low-band 600 MHz spectrum that the Federal Communications Commission was auctioning off in the US. The carrier said this will allow it to cover 100 percent of the US and Puerto Rico with its network. It added that phones that will be able to use the 600 MHz spectrum will be released later this year.

All in all, this was an excellent report from T-Mobile, and compares well with Verizon, who last week reported that it lost 289,000 phone customers, and 307,000 total subscribers, in the first quarter. Verizon also admitted its losses would have been worse if it had not launched its unlimited plan in February. After that, it started to see some improvement in those numbers. AT&T is expected to reveal its first quarter results on Tuesday, April 25.