T-Mobile continued to be on a tear on the broadband front, adding 541,000 5G home internet subscribers in the fourth quarter, which has a good chance of exceeding all other broadband providers — combined.
The results were part of the fourth-quarter results the company reported on Thursday. Earlier that morning, Comcast reported losing 34,000 broadband customers in the fourth quarter, the second period in a row in which internet subscribers fled the service.
The juxtaposition between their two results illustrates the momentum that 5G home internet has with consumers, even as the cable companies have downplayed it as inferior to its their more premium tiers of fiber-based service. Even though T-Mobile wasn’t the first to offer 5G — that would be Verizon — it’s quickly shown particular strength in this area.
On Tuesday, Verizon reported adding 231,000 5G home internet customers in the same period. AT&T on Wednesday said it added 67,000, a far lower number given that it didn’t launch its service in earnest until last fall, several years behind its rivals.
With the cable companies adding far fewer internet customers or, in the case of Comcast, losing customers, there’s a chance that T-Mobile alone could outstrip the rest of the broadband industry in subscriber growth this period.
T-Mobile ended the year with 4.8 million total 5G home internet customers.
In its core business, T-Mobile added 934,000 postpaid phone subscribers, or customers who pay at the end of the month and typically boast higher credit scores. It ended the year with a total of 119.7 million wireless customers.
Overall, T-Mobile posted a fourth-quarter net profit of $2.01 billion, or $1.67 a share, compared with a year-earlier gain of $1.48 billion, or $1.18 billion. Revenue, however, fell 1.3% to $20.48 billion.
Analysts, on average, forecast per-share earnings of $1.90 and revenue of $19.64 billion, according to Yahoo Finance.