T-Mobile retains Capex at $4.6 bn, despite targeting more wireless users

American wireless carrier T-Mobile US today said capital expenditure (Capex) will remain unchanged at nearly $4.6 billion for 2014, despite increasing the target for net customer additions to around 4.7 million.

T-Mobile, announcing the financial result for 2014 Q3, said branded postpaid net customer additions for 2014 will be between 4.3 and 4.7 million against the prior guidance of 3.0 to 3.5 million. T-Mobile said the success of its Simple Choice plans and the continued evolution of the Un-carrier strategy are assisting the company to revise its targets.

In the third quarter of 2014, Capex has gone up marginally to $1.1 billion against $0.9 billion in the second quarter of 2014 and $1.0 billion in the third quarter of 2013.

T-Mobile said its 4G LTE network now covers 250 million people. The company is now targeting a population coverage of 300 million people by year-end 2015.

T-Mobile-HQ

T-Mobile performance

The company today reported 2.3 million total net customer additions with 1.8 million total branded net customer additions for the third quarter, including branded postpaid net additions of 1.4 million and branded prepaid net additions of 411,000.

T-Mobile has ended the third quarter of 2014 with 52.9 million customers, an increase of 2.3 million customers from the end of the second quarter of 2014 and 10 million customers over the last 6 quarters.

Service revenues of T-Mobile grew 10.6 percent, primarily due to growth in the customer base and adoption of insurance and upgrade programs, partially offset by lower branded postpaid phone ARPU due to increased adoption of Simple Choice plans.

Branded postpaid Average Billings Per User (ABPU) of T-Mobile rose 4.2 percent to $61.59 in the third quarter of 2014.

Baburajan K
[email protected]