T-Mobile’s 5G network draws in record net adds, drives highest Q4 revenues yet

T-Mobile exceeded guidance to reach total Q4 2021 revenues of $20.78 billion, beating the previous year’s fourth quarter take of $20.34 billion. 

Most of this growth showed in the company’s postpaid services, which contributed revenues of $10.96 billion, up from $10.25 billion the previous year. Meanwhile, prepaid services grew more modestly to $2.47 billion, up from $2.35 billion, year over year, and wholesale services reached $975 million, up from $927 in 2020’s fourth quarter. 

Net income for the final period reached $422 million, or $0.34 per diluted share, a significant drop from the $750 million, or $0.60 per share, in profits recorded for Q4 2020. The primary factor here was a year-over-year increase of more than $1 billion in expenses, with the cost of equipment sales driving the rise. 

For the year, T-Mobile’s revenues hit $80.11 billion, an impressive jump over 2020’s $68.39 billion. Net income here was $3.02 billion, or $2.41 per share, just short of the $3.06 billion, or $2.65 per share, posted one year ago. 

On the mobile subscriber front, T-Mobile boasted 5.5 million postpaid net adds, a number which it claims led the industry for the 7th consecutive year. This is particularly good news for the telco as postpaid accounts not only drive the majority of its revenue, but also generally maintain the highest ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) of any account type. Just under 1.8 million of these new customers joined the carrier in the final quarter, alone. 

A major contributor to the company’s net adds was likely its nationwide 5G network, which reached 210 million customers by the end of the fourth quarter, according to CEO Mike Sievert.

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On the back of these results, T-Mobile posted guidance for its expected customer net adds in 2022 (5 to 5.5 million), but abstained from offering expected net income figures. According to the carrier, it would be impossible to provide such figures without “unreasonable efforts due to the high variability and difficulty in predicting certain items that affect GAAP Net income, including, but not limited to, Income tax expense, stock-based compensation expense and Interest expense.” 

It did, however, predict FY 2022 earnings of $25.6 billion to $26.1 billion. 

Meanwhile, it expects its ongoing efforts to complete the merger of its assets with those of Sprint to generate $5 to $5.3 billion in synergies and $4.5 billion to $5 billion in costs during the upcoming year.