T-Mobile USA Sees Net Customer Loss, Higher Data ARPU

T-Mobile USA reported a net loss of 50,000 mobile subscribers in Q2 along with slightly higher ARPU for data services, leading to service revenues of $4.6 billion, consistent with service revenues in the first quarter of 2011.


"The United States remains a difficult market for Deutsche Telekom, but we see improvements compared to the first quarter of 2011. T-Mobile USA will continue its strategy with the extended HSPA+ 42 coverage and continued data growth," said René Obermann, CEO of Deutsche Telekom.


Some highlights:


T-Mobile USA served 33.6 million customers at the end of the second quarter of 2011, generally consistent with the first quarter of 2011 and the second quarter of 2010.


Net customer losses of 50,000 compared to net losses of 99,000 in the first quarter of 2011 and 93,000 in the second quarter of 2010.


The improvement in net contract customer losses was driven primarily by the introduction of new unlimited rate plans in the second quarter and faster growth in our connected device business.


Connected device customers totaled 2.3 million at June 30, 2011.


Prepaid net customer additions, including MVNO customers, were 231,000 in the second quarter of 2011, down 18% compared to 283,000 in the first quarter of 2011 and up substantially from the 199,000 net losses in the second quarter of 2010.


Blended churn, below), reflecting both contract and prepaid customers, decreased to 3.3% in the second quarter of 2011 from 3.4% in both the first quarter of 2011 and the second quarter of 2010.


The year-on-year increase in contract churn was primarily driven by competitive pressures in the US wireless industry which have continued to negatively impact T-Mobile USA's contract customer base.


Prepaid churn decreased in the second quarter of 2011 to 6.6%, from 6.7% in the first quarter of 2011 and 7.6% in the second quarter of 2010.


The sequential decrease in prepaid churn was driven by a shift in the customer base towards traditional prepaid products, which was partially offset by higher MVNO churn.


Year-on-year, prepaid churn decreased due to lower traditional prepaid product churn resulting from the success of T-Mobile USA's recently introduced prepaid monthly unlimited plans.


Blended ARPU was $46 in the second quarter of 2011, consistent with the first quarter of 2011, but lower than $47 in the second quarter of 2010 driven by a shift in the customer base towards prepaid plans.


Contract ARPU was $53 in the second quarter of 2011, up from $52 in the first quarter of 2011 and each of the previous four quarters.


Prepaid ARPU was $18 in the second quarter of 2011, consistent with both the first quarter of 2011 and second quarter of 2010.


Data service revenues were $1.4 billion in the second quarter of 2011, up 17% from the second quarter of 2010.


Data service revenues in the second quarter of 2011 represented 30% of blended ARPU, or $13.60 per customer, up from 29% of blended ARPU, or $13.10 per customer in the first quarter of 2011, and 25% of blended ARPU, or $11.60 per customer in the second quarter of 2010.


9.8 million customers were using smartphones enabled for the T-Mobile USA 3G/4G network. This represents a net increase of 50% or nearly 3.3 million customers using smartphones from the second quarter of 2010.


3G/4G smartphone customers now account for 29% of total customers, up from 27% in the first quarter of 2011 and 19% in the second quarter of 2010.
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