T-Mobile adds 1.8 million customers, results slightly beat

(Reuters) - T-Mobile US Inc reported first quarter results that slightly beat expectations as the wireless company added 1.8 million net customers and users defected to other networks at a lower rate.

T-mobile shares, which have soared 25 percent year to date, were relatively unchanged in morning trade at $34.01 on the New York Stock Exchange.

The fourth-largest wireless carrier in the United States has turned around years of subscriber losses with aggressive deals, savvy marketing and well-publicized wireless plans in recent quarters.

Among the big four U.S. wireless companies including Verizon Communications , AT&T Inc and Sprint Corp , T-Mobile now has a 16.5 percent market share, up from 11.5 percent two years ago, Chief Executive John Legere said on an earnings call.

There is "long room to grow," Legere said.

The company, which bills itself as the "Uncarrier", has launched a series of wireless plans over the last two years, including offering to pay the early termination fees for customers switching from other carriers and letting users roll over unused wireless data each month.

While these initiatives have led to customer gains, they have come at a cost. The company reported a first-quarter loss of 9 cents per share, versus a loss of 19 cents a year earlier, narrowly beating analysts' expectations of a loss of 10 cents per share.

In the latest quarter, it added 1.1 million postpaid customers who pay for service after use. It said postpaid churn, the rate at which users switch to other networks, was at a record low of 1.3 percent, down from 1.7 percent in the previous quarter.

While AT&T and Verizon said they lost postpaid phone users in the first quarter, T-Mobile said it added 991,000 postpaid users.

For 2015, the company said it expects to add postpaid users in the range of 3 million to 3.5 million, up from its previous guidance in the range of 2.2 million to 3.2 million.

T-Mobile revenue rose 13.1 percent to $7.8 billion. This beat analysts' estimates of $7.7 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

(Reporting by Malathi Nayak in New York; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe and Chris Reese)

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