Verizon, AT&T Increase Rate of New Mobile Sub Growth

With third-quarter financial reporting completed for Verizon and AT&T, it looks as though both of those providers increased their pace of net new subscriber additions, compared to the second quarter of 2009.

 

That also suggests Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile USA will report third quarter new subscriber results worse than in the second quarter of 2009. In the second quarter, Verizon (News - Alert) and AT&T added fewer subs than in the third quarter.

 

AT&T, the first major U.S. mobile operator to issue results for the last quarter, reported 3.2 million iPhone activations for the period, more than expected. That helped it attract two million net new customers, a third more than analysts had forecast.

 

Verizon, for its part, has reported 1.2 million net customer additions in its third quarter. In its second quarter, Verizon added 1.1 million net new customers.

 

That means AT&T added 600,000 more net new customers than it did in the second quarter, while Verizon added an additional 100,000 net new customers than in its second quarter.

 

That suggests the likelihood that share gains were made at the expense of the other two major carriers. In the second quarter, T-Mobile's (News - Alert) rate of net customer additions slowed for the third straight quarter, while Sprint managed to reduce its rate of loss.

 

T-Mobile reported 325,000 net new customers added in the second quarter of 2009, down from 415,000 in the first quarter of 2009 and 668,000 in the second quarter of 2008, so the directional trend, all other things being equal, suggests T-Mobile USA will report a smaller net additions figure for the third quarter as well.

 

In its second quarter this year, Sprint Nextel lost 214,000 net subscribers, while AT&T added more than 2.4 Apple (News - Alert) iPhone customers and 1.4 million net new customers.

 

That means that, between them, Verizon and AT&T added about 700,000 more new net wireless subscribers than they did in the second quarter, and AT&T was the big winner.

 

That suggests a weaker performance from Sprint Nextel (News - Alert) in the third quarter than it the second quarter, as it is likely a significant number of those 700,000 net new additions came at Sprint Nextel's expense.