At a glance, how telecom-industry earnings underscore saturation in wireless market
By APThursday, April 22, 2010
A look at telecom-industry earnings for 1Q
Here is a summary of subscriber trends for selected telecommunications companies in the first quarter:
April 21: AT&T Inc. says it added a net 512,000 wireless customers under contracts during the first quarter. That was 43 percent lower than a year ago and represents the slimmest increase since 2004.
April 22: Verizon Communications Inc. reports the lowest quarterly number of new wireless contract customers in nearly a decade: 423,000.
April 28: Sprint Nextel Corp. reports the loss of 75,000 subscribers, slowing the pace of customer flight. But it keeps losing higher-paying contract-signing customers and continues its shift toward lower-paying “prepaid” customers.
April 29: America Movil SA of Mexico says its U.S.-based prepaid wireless service, Tracfone, added 1 million subscribers in the quarter.
May 6: MetroPCS Communications Inc. reports another strong result in the prepaid camp: 692,000 new subscribers. That was nearly double the number in recent quarters, and reflected cheaper price plans introduced in January.
Leap Wireless International Inc., parent of the prepaid Cricket service, reports adding 446,000 subscribers, nearly half of them for laptop data cards.
May 12: Deutsche Telekom AG says its T-Mobile USA unit lost 77,000 subscribers in the first quarter of 2010.
