T-Mobile Touts 5G Era Growth

March 12, 2021

In its virtual Analyst Day today, T-Mobile US unveiled ambitious plans to unlock future growth and capture even more momentum over the next five years.

Since closing its historic merger with Sprint in April 2020, the Supercharged Un-carrier has delivered industry best total net additions, strong profitability and higher than expected synergies, putting the company on the path to deliver financial results that exceed both the original three to four-year and longer-term targets provided in the original merger plans.

Through a line-up of some of the company’s senior executives today, the Un-carrier outlined plans to use its combination of superior assets and scale from the merger and the recent C-Band auction, to continue leading the industry in growth by delivering more value AND the best 5G network combined with the best experiences to consumers and businesses across the country.

“Only T-Mobile has the superior assets, scale, financial position and customer-loving team to lead this new 5G era now into the next decade, if not beyond. We are taking that lead and setting our sights higher -- taking on new growth ambitions and expanding into new markets like never before. We’re already miles ahead in executing on our clear and consistent plan, building the fastest, biggest and most available 5G network with the perfect mix of spectrum. That is going to continue to translate into a significant and demonstrable advantage for years to come,” said T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert.

“Better yet, this network and growth is primarily funded by our massive synergies. I am incredibly proud of our team for driving faster integration and unlocking even more synergies than expected, which will deliver incredible value for our customers and shareholders,” Sievert continued. “We now expect the total net present value of merger synergies to be more than $70 billion -- a 60 percent jump from our original merger plan. We’ve also raised mid- and long-term guidance, setting up the potential to return up to $60 billion to shareholders between 2023 and 2025. The next chapter for this Un-carrier is tremendously exciting – and we are truly just hitting our stride!”

Key Event Themes

• Positioned to Maintain 5G Leadership in the 5G Era – T-Mobile’s fastest, biggest and most available 5G network is the foundation on which all of the company’s short- and long-term goals are built. The Un-Carrier’s superior assets and unrivaled ability to execute has already put the company in the leadership position for 5G and it will continue to drive toward a demonstrable and sustainable 5G leadership advantage that is expected to last throughout the 5G era and beyond.
  
   
  • C-band Enhances T-Mobile’s Positioning – While its competitors spent unprecedented totals on the C-band auction, T-Mobile invested within its financial plan in C-band to add to its Ultra Capacity 5G. While its Ultra Capacity 5G will have the broadest reach and capacity, T-Mobile added C-band concentrated on suburban and urban areas, where it will make the biggest impact. This ensures mid-band superiority for the 5G era when it comes to quantity, reach and deployment costs. Securing 40 MHz of spectrum in top markets will augment and complement T-Mobile’s premier, multi-layer spectrum portfolio, positioning the company for continued leadership and to provide the best customer experience through the 5G era.
    
     
  • Building the Fastest, Biggest and Most Available 5G Network– T-Mobile’s 5G network build is moving at an unmatched pace, with the company targeting completion by the end of 2023 – just in time for others to get access to their C-band spectrum. Competitors will have to spend billions of dollars over years to deploy the spectrum they received, all while T-Mobile has been actively putting its multi-layer spectrum portfolio to work to create the densest and broadest network to benefit American consumers and businesses.
    
    T-Mobile is already delivering 5G across more geographic coverage than AT&T and Verizon combined. Now covering 287 million people across 1.6 million square miles with 5G, T-Mobile is the only operator to have deployed dedicated mid-band spectrum for 5G and deliver on the true promise of 5G by making ultra-fast speeds averaging 300 megabits per second widely available. T-Mobile’s Ultra Capacity 5G, which uses depth of mid-band (2.5 GHz), has been rapidly expanding and is covering 125 million people today.
     

• Significantly Expanding Addressable Markets – T-Mobile’s dense network with more spectrum provides capacity and speeds to unlock new growth opportunities. It will take the winning Un-Carrier approach and best 5G network to break into new markets, deepen relationships with customers and take the competition to cable.
  
   
  • Smaller and Rural Markets – There are roughly 50 million US households in smaller markets and rural areas – almost 40 percent of all households in America – where T-Mobile’s market share is in the low teens compared to its national average market share of approximately 30 percent. The Un-Carrier announced plans to increase to a near 20 percent share of these areas over the next five years. T-Mobile will bring a compelling value proposition to the most underserved areas by serving consumers with mobile, home broadband, and emerging 5G products – while delivering the best experience in market. T-Mobile will expand its physical footprint by building hundreds of new stores in small towns and communities over next five years, including over 200 new stores this year.
    
    T-Mobile products will also be available in nearly 1,000 Best Buy stores and more than 2,200 Walmart stores (nearly 1,000 in rural America). It also will introduce Metro by T-Mobile products in T-Mobile stores in rural America to expand its prepaid reach and shared plans to open approximately 500 new Metro by T-Mobile branded and multi-carrier stores this year to reach new consumers.
    
     
  • Evolving Care and Digital Capabilities – T-Mobile continues to provide its customers with world-class service support through its award-winning Team of Experts (TEX) approach. The company shared that in 2021 it will bring the full Un-carrier TEX experience to millions of legacy Sprint customers, an opportunity to further decrease churn on an accelerated schedule and remove pain points. As that transition is happening, T-Mobile Retail and Care teams are working together to improve the experience for these customers, bring them the Un-carrier value proposition and move them to the T-Mobile network. Early Net Promoter Scores from the initial group of Sprint customers that have completed a full transition are nearly 100 percent higher (or 20 points higher) than those who have not migrated.
    
    The Un-carrier announced plans to use simplified digital capabilities to make it easy for customers to get the help or find the product they need – however, wherever and whenever they need it. This includes enabling effortless purchase of products and service aimed at reducing switching friction, accelerating self-service and network migration efforts and ensuring its frontline teams in stores and Care are equipped to best take care of customers, creating personalized experiences and getting resolution even faster.
    
     
  • T-Mobile for Business – Today, T-Mobile has less than 10 percent market share in the large enterprise and government space, and the total business market is more than 50 million corporate liable lines – and growing! With T-Mobile’s 5G leadership, businesses are already making the switch and the growth opportunity is huge. T-Mobile expects to DOUBLE its market share in the next five years to about 20 percent, with plenty of room to expand based on strong 2020 performance.
    
     
  • Home Broadband – Outside of traditional mobile wireless, T-Mobile sees a huge opportunity to expand into home broadband. The Company shared plans to bring real competition to the $90 billion and growing broadband market. Its initial home broadband pilot had over 100,000 customers, exceeding expectations. On the heels of its recently announced new home broadband solutions for business, the Un-carrier is gearing up for its commercial launch of in-home broadband for consumers later this month and shared broader plans to expand the service to between seven and eight million broadband customers in five years.
    
     
  • Deepening Customer Relationships – T-Mobile’s compelling value proposition, coupled with the reach and capacity of its leading 5G network, will allow the company a unique opportunity to establish and deepen relationships with consumers, businesses and innovators who value network quality, and who may not have previously considered the provider. The company’s 5G network leadership allows it to serve customers through enhanced or additional services or devices over time. T-Mobile will use a multi-pronged approach to win new accounts and introduce them to its family of mobile offerings – from smartphones, to data devices, to entertainment, home broadband and other new services.
     

• Unlocking Merger Synergies – T-Mobile now expects the total net present value of merger synergies to be more than $70 billion – up more than 60 percent from the original merger guidance of $43 billion – as the company is unlocking synergies bigger and faster than expected and achieving a lower weighted average cost of capital.
  
   
  • The company delivered $1.3 billion of synergies in 2020 and expects to more than double that in 2021 by achieving $2.7 to $3.0 billion of synergies.
    
     
  • Looking ahead, the company expects total run rate cost synergies to reach approximately $7.5 billion per year – up 25 percent from the original merger guidance of $6 billion – largely driven by greater efficiencies in site costs and marketing expenses, along with additional information technology savings.
     

• Delivering Even Better Financial Results – T-Mobile is raising mid-term and long-term guidance across the board with higher service revenue, higher Core Adjusted EBITDA and higher free cash flow – setting up the flexibility for substantial shareholder return options with potentially up to $60 billion in shareholder return between 2023 to 2025.
  
   
  • Service revenue is expected to be $61 billion to $62 billion in 2023 – up $1.5 billion at the midpoint from the original guidance. Long-term, service revenue is expected to be over $70 billion by 2026 – above the top of the range in the original guidance.
    
     
  • Core adjusted EBITDA is expected to be $28 billion to $29 billion in 2023 compared to the original guidance which implied $25 billion to $27 billion – a $2.5 billion increase at the midpoint. Long-term, core adjusted EBITDA is expected to be more than $36 billion by 2026 – $1 billion above the high-end of the original guidance.
    
     
  • Free cash flow is expected to be $13 billion to $14 billion in 2023 – up $3 billion from the original guidance. Long-term, free cash flow is expected to be more than $18 billion by 2026 – above the high-end of the original guidance.