Grading the top 10 U.S. carriers in the third quarter of 2009
The following charts the top 10 U.S. wireless carriers in the third quarter of 2009 by subscriber base, according to research firm Strategy Analytics, and includes major metrics--such as churn, ARPU and revenue--of each carrier.
This list does not include resellers or MVNOs, such as Virgin Mobile USA or TracFone Wireless.
And don't forget to see how these figures stack up against first quarter 2009 figures and second quarter 2009 figures.
| Rank (# of subscribers) | Carrier | Subscribers (millions) | Net Adds (millions) | Churn (Avg Monthly) | Service Revenue (US$ millions) | Data % of Service Revenue | ARPU |
| 1 | Verizon Wireless | 89.013 | 1.238 | 1.49% | $13,525 | 30.5% | $51.04 |
| 2 | AT&T | 81.596 | 2.026 | 1.43% | $12,399 | 29.4% | $51.21 |
| 3 | Sprint Nextel* | 47.318 | -0.565 | 2.78% | $6,261 | 30.7% | $52.95 |
| 4 | T-Mobile USA | 33.420 | -0.077 | 3.40% | $4,733 | 21.1% | $47.15 |
| 5 | MetroPCS | 6.322 | 0.066 | 5.80% | $812 | $41.08 | |
| 6 | US Cellular | 6.131 | -0.024 | 2.22% | $985 | 17.7% | $53.49 |
| 7 | Leap Wireless | 4.655 | 0.115 | 5.4% | $541 | $39.60 | |
| 8 | iPCS | 0.720 | 0.010 | 2.4% | $136 | 34.0% | $50.45 |
| 9 | Cincinnati Bell | 0.536 | -0.008 | 2.3% | $72 | 22.8% | $43.46 |
| 10 | Ntelos | 0.438 | -0.004 | 3.6% | $98 | 17.5% | $53.22 |
| *Sprint Nextel subscribers and net adds excluding estimated number of affiliate subscribers (including iPCS), but including wholesale; service revenues excluding wholesale and affiliate | |||||||
| Source: Strategy Analytics, based on carrier reports | |||||||
Comments
What about Cellular South? Aren't they are larger than a few on the bottom of this list.
I am confused... I keep reading reports that say US Cellular added 6k post pay subs but lost 14k pre pay subs. How does that equate to losing 24k subs? Doesn't that equal losing 8k?
I am confused... I keep reading reports that say US Cellular added 6k post pay subs but lost 14k pre pay subs. How does that equate to losing 24k subs? Doesn't that equal losing 8k?
Great info, love the matrix format!
For US Cellular the numbers of +6k postpay and -14k prepay are for Retail only. The Total Gross Adds were 386,000 and Total Net Adds (Loss) was -24,000. The number I am having trouble finding is the Churn Rate of 2.22%. All I can find is postpay churn of 1.7%.
If you look at the net adds for Leap & Metro, you will see that in an apples to apples comparison, out of the 115k net adds for Leap, only 19k net adds were for phones, the remainder was for broadband. While Metro had 66k net adds. The lower than average adds for both carriers was only exacerbated by the historically weak Q3. The real test will be Q4 & Q1 which are historically the strongest 2 Q's.
who?
Cellular South is not a Public Company that's why they are not on the list.
Why not include the MVNO numbers in Sprint's totals? It is really just a matter of channel marketing and would give a better apples-to-apples network size comparison.
Hmm. Looks like VZW might not stay number one for long.. Their churn is up and their net adds is down. At&t adds are up and chrun is down plus they just bought Centennial Wireless and added another 900k subs. Think I see why VZW is attacking at&t and apple. They are smart like that.
Love the spreadsheet format.
It should be Cincinnati Bell not Cincinati Bell
Sprint had aspirations of running with the big dogs....now its fighting for crumbs with the puppies......what a loser
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