T-Mobile's CEO claimed that it was likely the "most successful carrier in the world" on the earnings call
This is largely thanks to its 5G standalone leadership in the US
The operator is now starting to roll out services like its T-Priority network slice for first responders
It's a beat for T-Mobile's earnings announced Wednesday morning, thanks to the strength of its 5G portfolio.
The operator in 2024 started to roll out 5G features like network slicing, which the CEO and other executives talked up during T-Mobile’s fourth quarter earnings call.
“By some measures we’re the most successful telecom in the world,” boasted CEO Mike Sievert during the call. “Yet we have so many incredible capabilities around incredible data ... and network capabilities that we have room to run in terms of creating new services around them.”
Slicing leads the way
Building on its nationwide 5G standalone (5G SA) leadership in the United States, the mobile network operator was able to launch network slicing and other capabilities during 2024. T-Mobile is offering first responders its T-Priority slice, which has already been offered to emergency personnel in Los Angeles, Nashville, Florida and North Carolina, noted Callie Field, president of the business group at T-Mobile.
“With T-Priority, we are able to present to first responders 40% more capacity and two and a half times the speed and in a time of extreme congestion, we’re able to allocate more than five times the network resources than we do to the average consumer,” Field said of the emergency slicing feature.
Recon Analytics analyst Daryl Schoolar noted that T-Mobile is the only U.S. carrier with a full, commercially available nationwide 5G SA network.
He added that the T-Priority slicing is actual radio access network (RAN) slicing rather than just core slicing. Core slicing is generally considered less complex than RAN slicing, which can enable more throughput to devices on a network.
T-Mobile also won the single carrier contract with the City of New York, thanks to “the power of our network,” Field said. “They take over 9 million 911 calls, they have a million buildings in the city," she added. "They don’t joke around when it comes to the safety of their communities."
Earnings pop
T-Mobile beat its earnings per share (EPS) by 12.61% at $2.57 quarterly, handily beating analyst expectations of $2.29 for the quarter. Net income for the fourth quarter 2024 increased 48% year-over-year to $2.98 billion and increased 36% year-over-year to $11.3 billion for the full year 2024. Revenue was $21.87 billion for the fourth quarter.
The operator added 903,000 new postpaid monthly contract customers for the quarter. T-Mobile added 1.93 million net customer additions for the quarter, and is predicting postpaid additions of up to 6 million in 2025.
T-Mobile’s shares popped on the earnings beat Wednesday morning, climbing 8.68% to $240.13 in morning trading.