T-Mobile USA 2009 revenue dropped by 1.6 percent due to lower roaming costs, but aggressive network upgrades are beginning to juice the carrier as subscribers opt for data-powered handsets.
Total revenues were $5.41 billion in Q4, down from $5.72 billion in the year-ago period, but up compared to the third quarter when it reported $5.38 billion. German parent Deutsche Telekom (NYSE: DT) said the currency-converted income it draws form the carrier grew 3.4 percent to €15.5 billion after it doubled its 3G reach to a nationwide 205 million people and increased its download speeds from 3.6Mbps to 7.2Mbps.
In its annual earnings published Thursday, DT said the upgrade has driven mobile data revenue, led by its flagship Android handsets. T-Mobile USA aims to make the network a 2010 centerpiece, including plans to increase 30 geographic areas to speeds of up to 21Mbps.
But it hasn’t been all smooth sailing. “Without doubt, business in the United Sates has been difficult,” the annual report acknowledges, saying that its US market share declined slightly because AT&T (NYSE: T) and Verizon signed more customers and because they enjoy advantages like iPhone and greater scale.
T-Mobile USA added a million customers to finish the year with 33.8 million, but churn upped from 2.9 to 3.2 percent due to “handset innovation and market launches by regional unlimited wireless carriers.” T-Mobile USA reported $1.38 billion in OIBDA in Q4, down from $1.57 billion in the fourth quarter of 2008; OIBDA margin of 30% in the fourth quarter of 2009, compared to 32% in the fourth quarter of 2008.
Group-wide Deutsche Telekom revenue jumped 4.8 percent to €64.6 billion because it fully accounted for its Greek subsidiary OTE for the first time. But net profit collapsed 76.2 percent to €400,000, in part because of impairments like that UK write-off.
By the year’s end, T-Mobile Deutschland had sold 1.5 million iPhones since getting Apple’s carriage in June 2009. And Telekom is looking farther ahead, too. “By 2015, we expect a typical mobile customer to require a data volume of around 14 gigabytes a month. In 2007, it was only a few megabytes,” it says in its annual report.