Legere and T-Mobile running riot again

He might be wild-eyed, egotistical and unconventional, but you can’t argue with the results T-Mobile US CEO John Legere is delivering shareholders.

Reporting 2018 full year financials, T-Mobile US has continued the rip-roaring success of the last few years. Total revenues for 2018 finished at $43.3 billion, up 7% year-on-year, alongside 7 million net customer additions, 4.5 million of which were in the lucrative branded postpaid segment.

“This never gets old,” Legere proclaimed. “T-Mobile finished another year with record breaking financials and our best-ever customer growth. Record revenues, strong net income, record Adjusted EBITDA, our lowest-ever Q4 postpaid phone churn that was better than AT&T for the very first time.

“T-Mobile is competing hard and winning customers – and we continue to deliver results beyond expectations. Our 2019 guidance shows that we expect our incredible standalone momentum to continue.”

All this, and the telco still hasn’t launched the much-anticipated TV offering.

When Legere first walked into the room as CEO in September 2012 investor jaws must have hit the floor. This is not a man who looks like a business leader in one of the most risk-adverse and stuffy industries on the planet, and when the first Uncarrier move was announced in 2013, a few must have been close to passing out.

Going against everything which everyone knew in the industry, March 2013 saw the introduction of the first Uncarrier offer. A new streamlined plan for customers which dropped contracts, subsidized phones, coverage fees for data, and early termination fees. This was certainly a break from the status quo and since this point numerous new Uncarrier moves have been introduced almost doubling revenues (2012 full year was $22.5 billion). It might not be traditional, but this is a success story like few others.

At the end of the three-month period, T-Mobile had a total of 79.6 million customers and a postpaid churn rate of 0.99%. This is still a company which should be considered a challenger, but T-Mobile US is making steady progress. It is not accelerating towards the leadership duo of Verizon and AT&T, but it certainly is not slowing up either. The big question is whether this momentum can be maintained.

With 5G on the horizon, the team certainly have the raw materials to create another few Uncarrier plays. Deployment of 600 MHz is setting the scene for a launch, with the team promising the network will be ready for the introduction of the first standards-based 5G smartphones in 2019. By the end of 2018, T-Mobile US claims to have cleared spectrum for approximately 135 million POPs and with the ambition to clear spectrum covering 272 million POPs by the end of 2019.

All this and the team still hasn’t done anything with the Layer123 purchase of December 2017. Alas, a TV Uncarrier move is just something we’ll have to look forward to over the next couple of months.