T-Mobile US announced that it set a new record in quarterly customer additions in the fourth quarter of 2018, growing by 2.4 million to a total of 79.65 million customers at the end of the year. Over the full year, the customer base grew by 10 percent or just over 7 million customers. Branded postpaid net additions totaled 1.4 million in the quarter, taking the total annual growth to 4.5 million, better than the company's already improved guidance.
Postpaid phone churn declined to 0.99 percent in the quarter, from 1.02 percent in Q3 and 1.18 percent a year earlier. Branded postpaid phone net customer additions were 1.0 million in the fourth quarter of 2018, which the company said was its best quarterly performance in four years.
Branded prepaid net customer additions reached 135,000 in the fourth quarter and 460,000 over the full year. Migrations to postpaid plans reduced prepaid customer growth by around 160,000 in the fourth quarter and 585,000 for full-year 2018, T-Mobile said. Wholesale net customer additions were 909,000 in the fourth quarter and 2.1 million for the full year.
This was the operator's 23rd consecutive quarter of adding more than 1 million customers and fifth year in a row gaining more than 5 million customers.
