T-Mobile USA Blames Lack of iPhone for Customer Loss in 4Q 2011

[MacRumors]

T-Mobile USA today announced earnings results for the fourth quarter of 2011, revealing a net loss of over 800,000 contract subscribers during the quarter. The carrier, which is now the only one of the four major U.S. carriers to not carry the iPhone, specifically blamed the launch of the iPhone 4S for the defections, mentioning the iPhone by name seven times in its release.

Sequentially, the decline in branded net contract customers was driven primarily by higher branded contract deactivations as a result of the launch of the iPhone 4S by three nationwide competitors in mid-October.

Following the collapse of a deal that would have seen T-Mobile USA acquired by AT&T, T-Mobile USA is seeking to reposition itself with a "challenger strategy" and move aggressively to roll out 4G LTE services beginning next year.




Other U.S. carriers have already been rolling out their LTE networks for some time, but T-Mobile has been behind that curve as it has relied on HSPA+ technology that previously gave it an advantage over some of the other carriers in data speeds. But with AT&T having upgraded its own network to HSPA+ even as it is already building out LTE, T-Mobile is now finding itself scrambling to recover from the holding pattern is was in while the AT&T acquisition deal was pending.

Article Link: T-Mobile USA Blames Lack of iPhone for Customer Loss in 4Q 2011

[notoriousceo]

or T-Mo can blame themselves for getting a new pink girl...

[*LTD*]

So much for this:

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1321445

[Lordskelic]

Poor T-Mobile...

[bommai]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

I don't think the us has room for tmobile. I think in a couple of years they will be dead.

[Sackvillenb]

I wonder what specific data they have used to come to this conclusion? I don't doubt their findings, I'm just curious about the details... I'm sure t-mobile will catch up... eventually...

[Mad-B-One]

Too sad. I liked their service but I switched for the same reason when Verizon started the iPhone. T-Mobile had better contract conditions even though their 3G network was a little thin in rural areas.

In the long run, I think we need T-Mobile on the US market as a competitor. Their service was one of the best I've seen so far. I have a Sprint work phone, a Verizon iPhone and my wife has a AT&T iPhone (had U.S. Cellular before - worst of all). So, I have some experience with the other major players. T-Mobile has the best plan for the buck and coverage - in my opinion.

[jayducharme]

So much for the view that keeping AT&T separate from T-Mobile would be better for business and better for competition. It looks like both companies are losing out, T-Mobile with the exodus of customers and AT&T with the loss of an expanded network.

[JediZenMaster]

As a former TMO employee this doesn't suprise me at all. It's not the lack of an iPhone that has hurt this company this lack of direction.

TMO has been way too focused on being "Budget friendly" as well as for a long time the retention reps would just give away high end phones at a loss just to retain customers. In the end its about the bottom line

They should have taken a page from AT&T and Verizon's book. Oh well too late.

[uknowimright]

most of their phones are mediocre, galaxy s II is one of their few bright stars, if they added the iphone and other high end android devices they would probably be doing better, at this point they compete more with metro pcs with the all the budget stuff they got going on

[snebes]

Originally Posted by notoriousceo

or T-Mo can blame themselves for getting a new pink girl...

What happened to Carly?? They are nuts to drop her!

[gpat]

T-Mo's best phone is a Galaxy S2 which... actually is not a Galaxy S2. (different processor, lack of support). 'Nuff said.

Their SIM-only plans are stellar, especially the $30 one for 5GB+txt+100min, but in the US market you can only go that far without killer handsets.

[Four oF NINE]

I don't understand the opposition to the merger between T-Mo and AT&T

[Apple 26.2]

Not being a fan of Deutsche Telekom, I say good... but the U.S. needs competition, so come on T-Mobile, get the with the program!

[danny_w]

Originally Posted by bommai

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

I don't think the us has room for tmobile. I think in a couple of years they will be dead.

That will be so sad if true. It would cost me considerably more (oat least $120/mo) to change carriers on my family plan, which is already far too hight IMHO. We need T-Mobile! And yes I do have an iPhone but with no network data (wifi is plenty for me).

[Skika]

Mobile phone carriers should all just evolve to just data providers. And we need a standard for voice calls that can run on all phones through EDGE, 3G or WIFI and uses the appropriate connection when available.

[applesith]

excuses excuses.

I blame that Catherine Zeta Jones wannabe. She's unbearable and bowlegged. Get the Zeta back!!

[Pared]

There HAS TO be a reason why TMobile is the only major carrier left out of the 4S launch. They either did not want to pay the money or something...

It can't be a technical reason. There are way too many people on T-Mobile with iPhones already using all of these hacks...

[auxiliary]

T-Mobile was doomed from the beginning.
Don't forget that T-Mobile, was Voice Stream, and Voice Stram was ??? That talking parrot (early 90's). Was always 2nd rate.

[danny_w]

Originally Posted by auxiliary

T-Mobile was doomed from the beginning.
Don't forget that T-Mobile, was Voice Stream, and Voice Stram was ??? That talking parrot (early 90's). Was always 2nd rate.

Second rate in what way? I have had Sprint, AT&T (throughout the various incarnations), and now T-Mobile. T-Mobile has by far the best customer service and network for my location out of all 3.

[Chupa Chupa]

If true then Android truly is iPhone's ugly step sister. But Android activation numbers do not bolster that position so seems to me T-Mob is the ugly step sister of the CellCo world. Their coverage is worse than ATTs and that's saying something.

[Jaredly]

Originally Posted by Skika

Mobile phone carriers should all just evolve to just data providers. And we need a standard for voice calls that can run on all phones through EDGE, 3G or WIFI and uses the appropriate connection when available.

I want even one step further than that. I just want WIFI to be expanded. It is clearly the fastest way of getting online. Why not just get rid of 3g 4g 5g etc. and get wifi everywhere. Make calls and surf the web over wifi. I dont understand why phone companies wont do this. Maybe one day our government will provide everybody in the country with wifi (yes I know that would make people nervous because then the government would know where you are all the time).

NYC already provides wifi in its parks so why not just expand that? Just my wishful thinking I guess.

[KPOM]

If the new chipsets from Qualcomm support AWS, then my guess is T-Mobile will bite the bullet and commit to purchasing a boatload of the next iPhone this fall. I have both T-Mobile and AT&T, and what I have found is that, in general, T-Mobile works better in the city, and AT&T works better in the suburbs around here (NYC).

[1080p]

Why can't they just shut down their 2G Edge network and deploy LTE on their 1900Mhz spectrum.

Then they could have LTE with UMTS (HSPA) as their fallback. No one wants to use EDGE anymore. Any customers that happen to have a GSM/EDGE only phone could get a free 3G phone offered by T-Mo.

[acidfast7]

welcome to 2009, US customers. I've had 50Mb/5Mb service for more than 2 years already.

lol


from wiki:

The world's first publicly available LTE service was opened in the two Scandinavian capitals Stockholm (Ericsson and Nokia Siemens Networks systems) and Oslo (a Huawei system) on 14 December 2009.