T-Mobile USA’s subscriber additions reflect overarching industry trends, as wholesale subscribers accounted for the lion’s share of growth in 4Q09, according to analysts at industry advisory firm Technology Business Research (TBR).

Additional comments by Kate Price, an analyst with Technology Business Research:

Wholesale customers represent just 6% of T-Mobile’s subscriber base but accounted for 400,000 net additions, offsetting a decrease of 117,000 postpaid customer additions and slow growth in the company’s prepaid retail base.

The company’s continued postpaid subscriber losses highlight T-Mobile USA’s difficulty competing to win subscribers among customers seeking mobile Internet access in addition to voice and text capabilities; however, the company is quickly closing the gap.  T-Mobile’s rapid rollout of HSPA 7.2 technology in 2009 and the launch of HSPA+ in 2010 will boost network capacity and provide the company with a competitive advantage over competitor AT&T, which has not announced plans to upgrade its network to HSPA+.  Faster network speeds should help the company boost postpaid subscriber additions in 2010.

T-Mobile USA lagged competitors in data monetization, as the company struggled to grow data revenue, but with 3G service now deployed to over 200 million people, the company is well-positioned to close the data ARPU gap in 2010, with an increased portion of data revenue originating from Internet access and applications.  T-Mobile continues to maintain the highest level of messages per subscriber per month, at 760 in 4Q09, which remains the most significant contributor to data revenue.

The company continues to aggressively expand their M2M business, a business which the company has successfully competed in for years.  Declining postpaid net additions masks growth exhibited in the M2M division.

source:tekrati