The nation’s largest wireless carrier reported a net loss of 127,000 postpaid phone subscribers during the first quarter.
The most important metric for a wireless provider is postpaid phone subscribers since these are the customers that pay high recurring subscription rates each month and buy new phones and accessories, and subscribe to services. For the three months that ended in March, Verizon, the nation’s largest wireless carrier, reported a net loss of 127,000 retail postpaid phone subscribers.
So while the company was quick to point out that it had a 5.3% year-over-year gain in the number of gross retail postpaid phone subscribers, the number of existing customers it lost in that category exceeded gross additions by 127,000. Wall Street was expecting Verizon to report a loss of 120,000 in net postpaid phone subscribers. This compares poorly with AT&T which reported Q1 net postpaid phone additions of 424,000 subscribers.
T-Mobile will report its Q1 earnings on April 27th and is expected to surpass AT&T’s figure to lead the industry in net new postpaid phone subscribers.
