T-Mobile: Strongest Quarter Performance in T-Mobile's history

Originally I wanted to post this in the T-Mobile user forum but it fits into the Wireless News section as well since it doesn't cover just the US. There was a large-scale press conference this morning at Deutsche Telekom's HQ in Bonn where Kai-Uwe Ricke and other top executives announced the strong Q3 results.


T-Mobile International: strongest quarter in the history of the company. (11/09/05)

# T-Mobile with strong customer growth in core countries Germany, United States and UK as well as revenue and EBITDA

# T-Mobile Deutschland: Successful strategy continues

# T-Mobile USA: 20 million customer mark surpassed

# T-Mobile UK: First signs of sustained stabilization


The third quarter of 2005 was the strongest quarter so far in the history of T-Mobile International.As such, the Deutsche Telekom subsidiary recorded an excellent close to the period from July to September.

A particularly pleasing development was the growth in the number of customers to 83.1 million: Around 530,000 new customers in Germany chose T-Mobile in the third quarter of the year, as well as 1,058 million in the United States and 258,000 in the United Kingdom.

The company is also in an excellent position with its financial figures: Compared to the same quarter last year, T-Mobile’s revenue increased by 10.6 percent to 7.6 billion. EBITDA was raised by 356 million to 2.7 billion.

Details on individual countries: T-Mobile Deutschland is successfully continuing its strategy of high-value growth. The German market leader increased its number of customers by 530,000 in the past quarter to 28.7 million. Of this customer growth, contract customers account for one third and prepaid customers two thirds; whereas accretion was achieved - in line with the strategy - with lower customer acquisition costs than in the prior year. These costs were reduced by EUR 16 per new customer compared with the third quarter of the prior year. Churn, EBITDA and the EBITDA margin (42.5 percent) were at the same level as in the prior year, despite the intensified competitive environment. Total revenue decreased slightly by 2.2 percent . This was the result of the decrease in low-margin revenues from terminal equipment. Service revenues (ARPU revenues) increased by 3.9 percent quarter-on-quarter, bringing them slightly above the figure for the prior year. A further positive development is that the proportion of customers choosing a card contract without a subsidized handset (SIM card only) is increasing. An example of this is the Relax Eco rates: Customers pay only half the monthly price for these minute-based packages, as they do not receive a handset with the contract. ARPU remained stable at EUR 23.

T-Mobile USA achieved an important milestone by surpassing the 20 million customer mark. By the end of September, T-Mobile USA served 20.3 million customers. Costumer growth therefore increased by approximately 4 million within one year. At the same time, customer acquisition costs were decreased considerably by EUR 28 compared to the same period in the previous year. T-Mobile USA increased its revenue by 26.4 percent year-on-year to EUR 3.1 billion and, at EUR 940 million, EBITDA was at the same level as the traditionally strong T-Mobile Deutschland figure for the first time. Concurrently, ARPU was boosted to EUR 42 compared to EUR 41 in the previous quarter.

T-Mobile UK is starting to see the first signs of sustained stabilization on the difficult UK market. Following negative net additions in the prior quarter, T-Mobile UK stabilized its customer base and added around 258,000 customers (incl. Virgin) to bring the total to 16.3 million.

The trend in ARPU-relevant revenue is now clearly on the rise again following the decreases in the first and second quarters of 2005. The decreases, which are the result of a cut in mobile termination charges by the British regulator, have now almost been compensated.

The EBITDA margin of 37 percent includes a positive effect of GBP 27 million of provisions relating to other periods for the so-called "council tax" which proved to be too high and were reversed.

The development of ARPU-relevant revenue in Austria and the Czech Republic was particularly positive, with growth of around 4 and 9 percent, respectively. Overall, the increase in Central and Eastern Europe was even greater, at 10 percent.

The EBITDA margin in Central and Eastern Europe was 46 percent in the third quarter, in Western Europe 38 percent and in the United States 30 percent, bringing the total for T-Mobile to 36 percent.

Source: http://www.t-mobile.net/CDA/pr_-q3_2005,20,,newsid-4290,en.html?w=1024&h=594

T-Mobile Group Growth Figures (.pdf):
http://www.t-mobile.net/MEDIA/6428,0.pdf

Other Growth results for all of Deutsche Telekom's divisions:
http://www.telekom3.de/en-p/medi/3-ne/2005/11-n/051109-q3-figures-article-ar.html

 

T-Mobile was created between 1990 and 1993 as T-D1 (D1 meaning that T-Mobile was the first German GSM 900 network, Vodafone is D2, E-Plus is the first GSM 1800 (E1) network and O2 is the E2 network) when the former Bundespost monopoly was split into 3 branches: Deutsche Post, Deutsche Telekom and the Postbank.

The Deutsche Bundespost began offering wireless analog services in the 1980s with the so-called B and C networks which were in use until 1994 and 2000.

Here's an outline of their historical beginnings:

July 1st, 1993 - T-Mobile is established with 1,200 employees and gains 481,000 customers within its first year as DeTeMobil.

1994 - T-D1 signs their first series of GSM roaming agreements with 21 partners. The first SMS is sent via the T-D1 network in March. By the end of 1994, there are 1.6 million customers using both the analog C-network and the GSM 900 (D-network) network.

May 1996 - T-D1 becomes the market leader with 2.3 million customers.

1997 - T-D1 is the first German GSM network to launch their prepaid GSM service, Xtra. 98% of the German population and 90% of Germany's physical geography are now covered by the network, the number of subscribers increases to 3 million.

1998 - There are now 5.5 million customers. The German FCC, the RegTP (Regulation Agency for Telecommunications and Postal Services), assigns T-D1 a new area code (0170) to cope with the growing customer base since the original D1 area (0171) has reached its capacity. Deutsche Telekom invests 1 billion DM in expanding the D1 network.

1999 - T-Mobile gains a GSM 1800 license allowing them to expand their network capacity into the GSM 1800 band. Customer base: 9 million.

2000 - On January 1st, Deutsche Telekom combines their wireless units into one division: T-Mobile International AG. T-Mobile's assets in the UK, Austria, the Czech Republic as well as their partnerships in Russia (MTS) and Poland (PTC) are part of this division. By December, the customer base has increased 19.1 million making it necessary for the RegTP to expand the area codes to the 0151, 0160 and 0175 prefixes. T-Mobile also purchases a UMTS 2100 licenses with 3 frequency blocks. GPRS is also introduced. The analog C-Network is shut off.

2001 - In July, T-Mobile gains the #1 spot in the German wireless market. There are now 23.1 million subscribers.

2002 - The company name is changed from DeTeMobil to T-Mobile Deutschland. MMS is introduced in July. T-Mobile purchases VoiceStream from Western Wireless.

2003 - 25th million subscriber joins T-Mobile. MMS popularity increases with 1.5 MMS messages and 300,000 MMS-capable handsets being sold between July and January alone.

2004 - PTT via VoIP is introduced. At the end of Q2, there are 27 million T-Mobile subscribers.

2005 - In March, T-Mobile is the first German UMTS provider to give a live demonstration of HSDPA. 28.1 million subscribers are attained as of June 30th.

Subscriber numbers by year:

12/31 Customers (in Mio.) Market Share
1992 0,069 38,4 %
1993 0,480 49,3 %
1994 0,885 50,3 %
1995 1,467 47,2 %
1996 2,174 43,3 %
1997 3,282 42,1 %
1998 5,484 40,5 %
1999 9,100 39,1 %
2000 19,100 39,7 %
2001 23,081 41,0 %
2002 24,582 41,5 %
2003 26,300 40,6 %
2004 27,513 38,6 %
2005 28,100 38,1 % (as of 6/30/2005)

http://www.t-mobile.net/CDA/germany,7,0,,en.html?w=1024&h=594

Here are a couple Flash timelines (will only work if your Pop-up block and Mozilla plugins like Adblock are disabled) showing T-Mobile's historical beginnings in relation to the history of wireless communications:

http://download-dtag.t-online.de/en...orate-profile/2-historical-timeline/index.htm
http://www.t-mobileinternational.co...le_communication,2042,0,,en.html?w=1016&h=598
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-Mobile#Unternehmensgeschichte
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-Mobile

 

Thanks for the info, are you here in Germany as well?

 

Ah ein zweiter Deutscher auf WA, nice to have you here. Up until now, I thought I was the only German on here .

Which provider are you using?

 

Ja Ich weiß, I was surprised to find out that there was yet another German in Germany frequenting WA .

Does your dad still have that C-Netz phone?

 

I see, what models were they?