T-mobile Q3 results

[Riley]

Not too shabby. Making some money.

T-Mobile USA Q3 2011 earnings: income and smartphone subscribers rise, net income at $332m -- Engadget

[rainfreak]

Well what do you know. A company that puts money into their network and strives to provide better customer service is making money. Sprint... did you hear that?

[austin420]

wow. after the article was the press release from tmo. its really not that positive. of 137000 new customers, 126000 were prepaid cheapo plans. i dont see them as being big money makers. while net income is up, they are also waaayyyy down in year over year profits.

Originally Posted by tmobile

-- Year-on-year, prepaid ARPU decreased due to the shift in customer mix away from FlexPay no-contract customers.

[Riley]

Originally Posted by austin420

wow. after the article was the press release from tmo. its really not that positive. of 137000 new customers, 126000 were prepaid cheapo plans. i dont see them as being big money makers. while net income is up, they are also waaayyyy down in year over year profits.


[I]

Good point but I think it's still good news overall for them considering the ATT acquisition looming over their heads. I would think some of their customers would be a little hesitant to sign up for another 2 years without closer on this deal. I think their numbers would be much better without this uncertainty imo.

[Dr.8820]

Wirelessly posted (WP7 Beta Tester: Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; MSIE 9.0; Windows NT 6.1; Trident/5.0; XBLWP7; ZuneWP7))

^this.

[eric12341]

Originally Posted by rainfreak

Well what do you know. A company that puts money into their network and strives to provide better customer service is making money. Sprint... did you hear that?

@rainfreak yea couldn't agree more. Tmo, USCC and VZ are the only companies I know of that are actually investing in their network and pleasing customers. Both Tmo and USCC have the most towers within a mile or two from my house while sprint only has two and they both look weak and wimpy.

Originally Posted by austin420

wow. after the article was the press release from tmo. its really not that positive. of 137000 new customers, 126000 were prepaid cheapo plans. i dont see them as being big money makers. while net income is up, they are also waaayyyy down in year over year profits.

and for this guy right here @austin420 at least they didn't blow a great amount of their budget on a damn iPhone that's causing even more network problems and still owes apple money like a certain other company did.

[Riley]

and for this guy right here @austin420 at least they didn't blow a great amount of their budget on a damn iPhone that's causing even more network problems and still owes apple money like a certain other company did.

Let's try to be a little realistic. The iphone is the most popular device in the world. Sprint needed to offer it to maintain some inkling of relevance as a top 3 carrier in the US and they needed a hail mary. We don't know exactly what Sprint's investment was either so it's pure speculation to assume they blew their budget. Tmobile is most likely gone(ATT) so why bother offering it. Sprint's network problems were around before the iphone as you can attest to since you mention it often. Sure ATT had issues because they did not properly prepare for the network congestion, however, Verizon did and the iphone gets high marks as a consequence. Who knows if Sprint prepared for the congestion but that's on them. Please let's just stop blaming everything on the iphone. Sprint's network sucks because they dropped half their towers earlier this year as gten has mentioned several times. The investment they made on the Iphone may end up saving the company along with quickly implementing network vision but they need customers to do that which the iphone will most likely address. You don't need to be a fan of Apple to recognize and justify the business case for it release on Sprint.

[eric12341]

Originally Posted by Riley

Let's try to be a little realistic. The iphone is the most popular device in the world. Sprint needed to offer it to maintain some inkling of relevance as a top 3 carrier in the US and they needed a hail mary. We don't know exactly what Sprint's investment was either so it's pure speculation to assume they blew their budget. Tmobile is most likely gone(ATT) so why bother offering it. Sprint's network problems were around before the iphone as you can attest to since you mention it often. Sure ATT had issues because they did not properly prepare for the network congestion, however, Verizon did and the iphone gets high marks as a consequence. Who knows if Sprint prepared for the congestion but that's on them. Please let's just stop blaming everything on the iphone. Sprint's network sucks because they dropped half their towers earlier this year as gten has mentioned several times. The investment they made on the Iphone may end up saving the company along with quickly implementing network vision but they need customers to do that which the iphone will most likely address. You don't need to be a fan of Apple to recognize and justify the business case for it release on Sprint.

@Riley
it's true that I was having problems before the iPhone came along but since it did my speeds got even worse and now I'm seeing reduced speeds in other places too, sprint did not properly prepare for the iPhone and the iPhoners will not stick around as quite a few of them have already returned them and went to ATT or VZ, u can go on the sprint community forums and look if u don't believe me. All the returns are bound to cost some money and that's why sprint is like $6b short with apple.

[Riley]

Originally Posted by eric12341

@Riley
it's true that I was having problems before the iPhone came along but since it did my speeds got even worse and now I'm seeing reduced speeds in other places too, sprint did not properly prepare for the iPhone and the iPhoners will not stick around as quite a few of them have already returned them and went to ATT or VZ, u can go on the sprint community forums and look if u don't believe me. All the returns are bound to cost some money and that's why sprint is like $6b short with apple.

Sure, time will tell I guess. They obviously felt that this will help them turn the tide. Sprint has been marketing lower prices and unlimited data for years. Hasn't stopped the bleeding so why not try offering a device that apparently sells well?

[gTen]

Ok, I just want to clarify about the misconception people have about profit.

Higher year over year profit, or more profit has nothing to do with how well a company is doing. For a company to be doing well they only need 2 things, enough cash on hand to pay the bills and a profit of 1 cent.

Yes you heard me right...let me explain. When you calculate profit, it is after all expenses, after all debts, after all investments and after all R&D and after all salaries and after all bonuses.

There are 2 reasons for a company to have higher profits:

1) If you plan to sell/merge the company

2) If you want to pay out more dividends

When a company spends money on their infrastructure, investing and their employees, obviously its profits would go down.

One of the big reasons why our economy is doing so badly is ironically because companies are showing such high profit margins, because that means they are not spending money on things like R&D, Investing and paying their own employees.

Edit:

On the issue of Sprint, I don't know I kind of fear for their continued existence. They are throwing around too much money and considering they have ben in the red for so long that is not healthy. Don't get me wrong throwing in money can help jump start a business that is in the red. But they so far had too much failure and at this point without a backer it seems they are making too many sacrifices to get the money out there. For one, I'd cut Dan Hesse salary that guy gets paid way too much for so little...I mean sprints weakness has been 1 thing, poor management. simple as that.