The third-quarter earnings season is coming to a close, so now it's time to see how the nation's top wireless carriers stacked up against each other in terms of key metrics. Jackdaw Research analyst Jan Dawson has assembled these slides that provide an in-depth look at how Verizon Wireless (NYSE: VZ), AT&T Mobility (NYSE: T), Sprint (NYSE: S) and T-Mobile US (NYSE:TMUS) performed in the third quarter. Dawson also covers América Móvil's U.S. MVNO, TracFone Wireless, which is the nation's largest operator outside the big four carriers.
Thanks to a partnership between Dawson and FierceWireless, we're publishing these third-quarter slides exclusively for a short time. These slides are part of a larger report Dawson has assembled on the third quarter.
One of Dawson's key findings from analyzing the earnings data is that T-Mobile continues to lead the other Tier 1 carriers in wireless revenue growth, although TracFone's growth recently makes it the leader overall among the big five operators. T-Mobile's growth is due to its rapid acquisition of new customers along with its relatively low churn compared with Sprint. However, the downside of T-Mobile's rapid growth is that it has come at the expense of its profitability. Though it is the fastest-growing among the four major carriers, it is now also the least profitable of all five major operators, as its EBITDA margin dropped below that of TracFone this quarter. For more data, check out this special report.