T-Mobile Added 1 Million Customers in Fourth Quarter -- Update

By Drew FitzGerald and Dave Sebastian 

T-Mobile US Inc. said it added one million of its most profitable cellphone customers in the fourth quarter, driving the carrier's subscriber base closer to its larger rivals' as it awaits a ruling on its proposed merger with Sprint Corp.

The Bellevue, Wash., company issued preliminary results showing a net gain of one million postpaid phone customers during the last three months of 2019, plus 77,000 prepaid subscribers. Postpaid subscribers are important to carriers because they tend to pay their monthly bills regularly and are less likely to switch providers.

T-Mobile ended the year with about 67.9 million customers, excluding "wholesale customers" who pay another brand that uses its cellphone network.

T-Mobile's proposed $26 billion merger with rival Sprint has overshadowed the company's steady growth over the past two years. The deal, announced in 2018, remains in limbo after a coalition of state attorneys general led by California and New York challenged the transaction on antitrust grounds.

Lawyers for both sides are scheduled to deliver closing arguments in the case on Jan. 15, following a two-week December trial that featured testimony from top executives at T-Mobile and Sprint as well as their corporate parents, Deutsche Telekom AG and SoftBank Group Corp. A federal judge is expected to rule on the case in the coming weeks.

Combining T-Mobile with its smaller rival would create a third major wireless provider with roughly as many customers as Verizon Communications Inc. and AT&T Inc., the country's No. 1 and No. 2 cellphone carriers, respectively.

T-Mobile posted its early customer tally ahead of an expected appearance at an annual Citigroup investor conference Tuesday. The company hasn't yet released last year's earnings results.

Write to Drew FitzGerald at [e-mail] and Dave Sebastian at [e-mail]

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

January 07, 2020 16:10 ET (21:10 GMT)

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