T-Mobile, the 4th U.S. wireless operator, had a 2.7% share rise, up to $31.85. T-Mobile is two thirds owned by Deutsche Telekom and specialises in providing plans for equipment installation, lifetime free data for tablets or free data roaming.
The company is also referred to an an “un-carrier,” as it also likes to call itself, and has eliminated all contracts and introduced a billing plan that encourages customers to pay for devices in instalments. And it seem they’ve got it going on big time.
“2014 was the best year of growth in company history. (…) Our Un-Carrier moves helped us blow away the competition. The best is yet to come, as the future looks bright in 2015,”
John Legere, president and CEO of T-Mobile said.
T-Mobile recently added 2.1 million subscribers, therefore managing to bring its customer count to over 55 million. This fact marks the 7th quarter in a row that T-Mobile managed to generate over 1 million customer additions. All in all, for the full-year 2014, the company added 8.3 million net customers; that’s an 89% increase from 2013.
The company has managed to add so many customers by using a series of “Un-carrier” initiatives, such as encouraging costumers to break their long-term contracts that characterise the wireless industry, and to offer them early upgrades, or free international data roaming, as well as data rollover and paying early termination fees for the ones who decide to switch.
Moreover T-Mobile’s 4G LTE network is well-known for having great coverage in urban areas, despite its continuing to suffer from some gaps in several other more remote parts of the country.
The company also announced Friday that it covered widely populated areas, with 265 million inhabitants at the end of 2014. This is a way better score than its original target of 250 million people. By the end of this year, its population coverage target is expected to reach 300 million people.
Among T-mobile’s targets is their surpassing their competitor, Sprint, which managed to add 900,000 net new customers, only 30,000 being post-paid subscribers, which are currently seen in the industry as representing the most valuable segment of the market. Legere had previously expressed their desire to surpass Sprint by the end of 2015. T-mobile is seriously working on achieving this.