MVNO Ting reports 3,000 net adds in Q2, but 1,000 former PTel customers flee

Ting, an MVNO operated by internet company Tucows, said it gained a net increase of 3,000 customers during the second quarter – a relatively sluggish figure that the company attributed to the exodus of 1,000 former PTel customers who moved to Ting after PTel shut down, and then subsequently left Ting after their free service ran out.

“I should note that about 1,000 of the former Platinum Wireless customers that we mentioned coming to team in Q1 defected once they had used the free service credits we gave them,” explained Tucows CEO Elliot Noss during the company’s quarterly conference call with investors, according to a Seeking Alpha transcript of the event. “That is almost inevitable with any migration of that nature, and we are still quite happy with the bump we got there for the price, but it does mean that the 12,000 net ads we reported in Q1 were inflated as we noted and the 3,000 net ads we're reporting for Q2 are of course deflated.”

Overall, Noss said Ting added 3,000 accounts and 6,000 devices during the second quarter, bringing the company’s total customer base to 144,000 accounts and 227,000 devices. He said the company’s churn during the period was 2.4 percent, largely the same as its first quarter churn.

PTel Mobile, a T-Mobile MVNO, quietly closed its doors after 15 years in business this February. Ting had sought to span up PTel’s customers with offers of free Ting service.

Separately, Noss also pointed to Ting’s recent price cuts as a potential driver for the company’s third quarter performance. “With this price drop, we are no longer just the smart choice for low data users,” he said. “We offer an even more overwhelming majority of Americans substantial potential saving on their monthly cell phone bills and with our approvals usage, and low monthly line fee, we’re pretty much in numerator for families, small businesses or any account with multiple devices.”

Ting last week lowered the prices of every other plan apart from its $3-a-month “small” plan, so users pay $10 per gigabyte of data on top of the basic rate.

Overall, Tucows’ net revenue for the second quarter of 2016 increased 11 percent to $47.5 million, up from $42.9 million for the second quarter of 2015. The company’s net income for the second quarter clocked in at $4.1 million, way up from the $2.3 million it reported in the year-ago quarter.

“Ting Mobile powered another great financial quarter,” Noss said in a statement from the company.

Ting offers service from Sprint as well as GSM service that is likely from T-Mobile.

For more:

- see this Ting release

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