T-Mobile’s strong brand and reputation, coupled with its strong spectrum position, should drive strong revenue and profit growth over the next couple of years. Longer term, we expect a rational competitive landscape will allow the firm and its rivals to deliver stable cash flow.
After several years of unprecedented success, T-Mobile has the wind at its back. The firm’s reputation with consumers is as strong as ever, and its network is delivering better service than the other carriers.
Bears
As the race to 5G heats up, T-Mobile will need to step up investments, pressuring cash flow, or fall behind AT&T and Verizon, which have dense fixed-line networks at their disposal.
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Deutsche Telekom merged its T-Mobile USA unit with prepaid specialist MetroPCS in 2013, creating T-Mobile us. Following the merger, the firm provided nationwide service in major markets but spottier coverage elsewhere. T-Mobile spent aggressively on low-frequency spectrum, well suited to broad coverage, and has substantially expanded its geographic footprint. This expansion, coupled with aggressive marketing and innovative offerings, produced rapid customer growth. With the Sprint acquisition, the firm’s scale now roughly matches its larger rivals: T-Mobile now serves 73 million postpaid and 21 million prepaid phone customers, equal to around 30% of the U.S. retail wireless market. In addition, the firm provides wholesale service to resellers.