T-Mobile touts record number of subscribers in August
The carrier's flamboyant CEO says more wireless consumers are joining its network than any other major wireless network.
T-Mobile had its strongest month ever in August 2014, the company's top executive, John Legere, said Wednesday during a press conference in San Francisco to introduce the next phase of the company's UnCarrier strategy.
Legere said the company added 2.75 million new customers in the month of August alone. This is the greatest number of new customers the company has ever added, he said.
During the entire second quarter of 2014, T-Mobile added 1.5 million net new customers, Legere said. He also pointed to figures that suggest customers are leaving T-Mobile's competitors more often than they're leaving T-Mobile. Specifically, he said the porting ratios, when customers cancel service with one carrier for T-Mobile, are on the rise.
In the previous quarter, he said, the porting ratio from all T-Mobile's carriers to T-Mobile was 2 to 1. This would mean T-Mobile's competitors have lost twice as many customers to T-Mobile as they gained from T-Mobile. In Sprint's case, the ratio was 4 to 1.
T-Mobile, the fourth-largest wireless operator in the US, has been pushing its UnCarrier strategy for more than a year as it tries to compete against larger competitors AT&T, Verizon and Sprint. The company was the first of the major wireless operators to abandon contract plans and it has introduced other innovative programs, such as an early upgrade program. In addition, it's been cutting prices and offering customers incentives to switch from their current providers to T-Mobile. The company already offers to pay early termination fees for subscribers leaving AT&T, Verizon Wireless or Sprint.