Majority of net new subscribers were prepaid in Q4 2009

March 16, 2010/Joe Pawlikowski

T-Mobile adding more prepaid subscribers than postpaid, this comes as less of a surprise. It appears that the efforts of carriers like MetroPCS, Cricket, and Boost Mobile paid off. We also found out some less reported statistics regarding total subscribers for the major prepaid carriers. Here’s the breakdown, according to IDC. Note that Boost’s numbers include Virgin Mobile, which became part of Sprint in the fourth quarter.

Carrier Total Subs
Tracfone 14.4m
Boost 10.6m
T-Mobile 7m
MetroPCS 6.6m
Cricket 4.9m
Verizon 5.4m
AT&T 5.4m
A combined MetroPCS/Cricket outfit, then, would boast 11.5 million customers, shooting them past Boost. And, again, they’d have the potential for even more subscribers with a more contiguous network. Also, IDC notes that while Verizon and AT&T ended the year with roughly the same number of prepaid subscribers, Verizon is trending up, having added 500,000 subscribers in 2009, while AT&T is trending downward, having lost 800,000. This is definitely something to look for in April when we start seeing Q1 2010 results. Will prepaid’s share of the total market grow? Or will Sprint rally and change the paradigm? ]]>

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2 Comments

  1. mike freeman on March 17, 2010 at 5:01 am

    Sprint is going to continue its haphazard mix of brilliant desperation and general directionless on the postpaid front, WHERE IT REALLY COUNTS for them.
    The prepaid side is pulling in people but Sprint Postpaid’s screwups will flatten any such advantage to a zero sum game.
    Tracfone will continue as the King of Prepaid.
    Tracfone will get stronger and Sprint will get weaker.
    Sprint isn’t doing SQUAT with the nearly 5 million Virgin Mobile users and VM is rapidly losing relevance to their own Boost iden/cdma twin sisters’ brand. Sprint’s annoucement of at least one other NEW prepaid division by possibly summer time and maybe even TWO more divisions is going to create a marketing identity mess.
    Sprint splashing “On the SPRINT nationwide network” all over their Boost cdma ads is SUICIDE. It effectively cannibalizes their postpaid advantages.
    Though Byod on Boost cdma is not yet widely known, it will be a growing factor in the cannibalization of Sprint postpaid by Bmcdma.
    The only thing holding Sprint back from success is Sprint itself really.



  2. ducky on March 17, 2010 at 10:51 pm

    – Boost Mobile 2009 added 2.5+ Million subs
    – Thus far (2010) Boost Mobile is completely selling out the Incognito model phone.
    – Tracfone’s ARPU is well below $10 incase anyone hasn’t read up on those types of metrics before.
    – HTC Supersonic
    – HTC Nexus One
    Sprint’s numbers Prepaid and Postpaid have been trending up. THE most important metric of all; continued growth.