T-Mobile continued to struggle in the broadband space, adding 541,000 5G home internet subscribers in the fourth quarter. This could very well be more than all other broadband providers combined.
The results were part of the company’s fourth-quarter financial results announced Thursday. Earlier that morning, Comcast reported that it lost 34,000 broadband customers in the fourth quarter. This is the second consecutive period in which internet subscribers have left the service.
Juxtaposing these two results shows that 5G home internet is gaining traction among consumers, even though cable companies have been downplaying it as inferior to more premium fiber-based services. You can see that Although T-Mobile was not the first to offer 5G, that is Verizon, it quickly showed special strength in this area.
On Tuesday, Verizon reported that it added 231,000 5G home internet customers during the same period. AT&T said Wednesday it had added 67,000 jobs, but that number is much lower considering it didn’t fully launch the service until last fall, several years later than its competitors.
T-Mobile alone could outpace the rest of the broadband industry in subscriber growth this quarter, as cable companies are adding far fewer Internet customers or, in Comcast’s case, losing them.
T-Mobile ended the year with a total of 4.8 million 5G home internet customers.
In its core business, T-Mobile acquired 934,000 postpaid phone subscribers, customers who pay at the end of the month and typically have higher credit scores. It ended the year with a total of 119.7 million wireless customers.
Overall, T-Mobile’s fourth-quarter net income was $2.01 billion ($1.67 per share), compared with profit of $1.48 billion ($1.18 billion) in the year-ago period. Meanwhile, sales decreased by 1.3% to $20.48 billion.
Analysts on average expected earnings of $1.90 per share and revenue of $19.64 billion, according to Yahoo Finance.
