MetroPCS posts record customer growth in Q4, tops 5M customer mark

MetroPCS Communications Inc. said it added a company record 520,000 net customers during the fourth quarter of 2008, and ended the year with 5.4 million customers on its network. MetroPCS’ Chairman, CEO and President Roger Linquist attributed the strong growth to the continued migration of voice services to the mobile space.
The strong customer growth also helped push revenues from $591.1 million during the fourth quarter of 2007 to $723.6 million in 2008. And despite a drop in average revenue per user from $42.83 to $40.52, the regional wireless provider reported its quarterly loss improved from $57.5 million in 2007 to $4.7 million for the fourth quarter of 2008. MetroPCS said this ARPU dip was because more of its customers signed up for Family Plans. Since MetroPCS removed unlimited text messaging from its $40 a month plan more customers have signed up for $45 and higher monthly service plans which is great for sales, but also negatively impacted ARPU, the carrier noted.
Customer churn – always a tricky proposition for no-contract carriers – hit 5.1% during the fourth quarter of 2008, a slight increase from the steady 4.8% churn reported during fourth quarter of 2007 and third quarter of 2008.
The carrier also continues to expand into new markets. Recently, it hit New York and Boston, which MetroPCS CEO Roger Lindquist said he considered an important milestone. He also noted that MetroPCS has no plans of slowing down when it comes to expansion, both for 3G and 4G.
“With a network using both macro sites and DAS, we launched service covering approximately 15 million total covered POPs,” Lindquist said. “We also continue to work on our transition to an LTE flat infrastructure platform to provide 4G data rates to our subscribers. We are currently working with a number of handset and infrastructure providers, and hope to be able to announce these strategic relationships and timetables in the near future.”
MetroPCS initially announced its LTE plans last year.
Indeed expansion is not only limited to the network. The carrier said it expects to announce a smartphone offering during the second quarter.
Article updated Feb. 27 to include additional information.