MetroPCS boosts revenue, but ARPU declines

MetroPCS reported a bump in revenue and reported a profit for the fourth quarter and the full year, but saw its ARPU decline. The flat-rate carrier posted total revenue for the quarter of $724 million, up 22 percent from $591 million in the year-ago quarter. The carrier also had net income of $15 million in the quarter, compared to a $47 million loss in the fourth quarter of 2007.

Net additions: The carrier had a little under 520,000 net subscriber additions in the quarter, a 74 percent year-over-year increase. For the year, MetroPCS had around 1.4 million consolidated net additions, and ended 2008 with a little under 5.4 million total subscribers.

Churn: Churn in the fourth quarter increased to 5.1 percent, up from 4.8 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008. For the full year, the churn rate was 4.7 percent, constant from 2007.

ARPU: ARPU in the quarter was $40.52, down from $42.83 in the year-ago quarter. ARPU was also down for the full year, down to $41.39 compared to $43.31 for all of 2007.

Network additions: In November, the carrier launched its nationwide calling plan, which it says provides service in 300 cities coast to coast. At the end of September, MetroPCS and its rival Leap Wireless, settled all of their outstanding litigation and inked a roaming deal that covered both networks' present and future markets. MetroPCS also launched a service to flash compatible CDMA handsets over to its network.   

For more:
- see this article [1]
- see this release [2]

Related Articles:
MetroPCS [3] had 520K net adds in Q4
MetroPCS [4] launches nationwide plan
MetroPCS [5] adds 249K subs in Q3
Leap [6], MetroPCS announce roaming deal
MetroPCS [7] will flash existing CDMA handsets