- T-Mobile added 274,000 postpaid net accounts in Q3, and postpaid ARPA grew 4% year-over-year to $155.73
- T-Mobile now expects about 1 million postpaid net account additions for 2026, the midpoint of its earlier guidance
- CEO Srini Gopalan said he sees "no room" for a SpaceX MVNO, either for consumers or for physical and edge AI
T-Mobile was the last of the Big 3 wireless carriers to report Q3 results, and in some ways the hardest to compare. It no longer breaks out phone net adds, but its 274,000 postpaid account additions and 27% profit jump still stood out.
The postpaid accounts include both broadband internet and mobile phone customers. Postpaid average revenue per account (ARPA) grew 4% year-over-year, to $155.73.
Net income of $3.5 billion grew 27% year-over-year, while net cash provided by operating activities of $7.3 billion decreased 2% year-over-year. Adjusted free cash flow of $5.1 billion grew 5% year-over-year.
For the full year 2026, postpaid net account additions are now expected to be about 1 million at the midpoint of the company’s previous guide of 950,000 to 1.05 million.
As usual, the most interesting points to emerge from of the Q3 earnings call came during the Q&A with analysts, who queried T-Mobile’s management team about fixed wireless access (FWA) accounts, its fiber/convergence strategy and of course, SpaceX’s planned entry into the mobile phone space, among other things.
The SpaceX factor
T-Mobile CEO Srini Gopalan held the line on his previous statements about how he is not interested in doing an MVNO with SpaceX/Starlink Mobile, primarily because it doesn’t extend T-Mobile’s total addressable market (TAM). T-Mobile offers a direct-to-device (D2D) service called T-Satellite that uses Starlink satellites, but that’s not an MVNO.
“We’ve been very clear that in terms of satellite, we see it as a complementary product and therefore we don’t really see the room for an MVNO for satellites or SpaceX in that context,” Gopalan said.
When it comes to physical and edge AI, “again, from our perspective, we’re steaming ahead and building our 5G SA as well as rolling into 6G,” he said. “We see ourselves in the lead in terms of those capabilities and we see no space for an MVNO here because … what additional capabilities does it give us?”
He added: “If we’re talking about SpaceX as a customer or us being a customer of them, that’s a purely commercial agreement. But the answer to the MVNO is: I see no room for an MVNO with SpaceX, either on the consumer side or on the physical and edge AI side.”
Fiber and convergence
Gopalan reiterated T-Mobile’s emphasis on bundling – not convergence, which is a popular theme for rival AT&T and maybe to a slightly lesser degree, Verizon. He emphasized a tempered approach to future fiber acquisitions and said they “will play,” but they’re not chasing a certain number of homes passed.
“We’re huge believers in bundling, which is multiple line phone accounts, which is FWA with our phone account, which is more and more often actually our credit card… It’s just one form of bundling, right? There is no panacea in convergence, nor do we see a sharply differential churn benefit other than having more relationships,” he said.
“We don’t approach fiber from a ‘we need this because of convergence.’ We look at fiber as a standalone business based on the return on equity that it ends up giving us, so we will be thoughtful and choiceful and not chase a number of homes passed,” he said.
Fixed wireless access (FWA) momentum
In the FWA realm, analyst Craig Moffett of MoffettNathanson observed a “pretty dramatic” deceleration from Verizon’s Q3 results and a “little bit of acceleration” from AT&T and asked what T-Mobile is seeing since “we’re all sort of left a little bit in the dark” without specific subscriber metrics.
In FWA, “we’re seeing really strong momentum,” and tracking ahead of pace to the goal of hitting 15 million FWA customers by 2030, Gopalan said. “We’re seeing ARPU growth both sequentially year on year and I think a lot of that comes back to the pure quality of the product,” in terms of both speed and performance.
André Almeida, chief commercial officer at T-Mobile, added that “we had industry-leading FWA nets this quarter, so you can take that as an indication of what we’re seeing in terms of our strength in the market.”
Gopalan also addressed satellite in relation to broadband, saying “we’ve got a great product in FWA and in many ways, except for some deep rural paths, satellite is an inferior version of FWA with even more constraints in terms of things like what is the size of the beam, right? I don’t see the synergy there between FWA and satellite.”
What’s the competitive landscape look like moving into Q4?
Broadly speaking, Gopalan said the industry has seen an increase in phone subsidies and that has been driven by an increase in device pricing.
T-Mobile’s new T-Mix pricing is one way they’re addressing a customer pain point, which is wanting to have more control over their wireless plan. That means: Don’t give consumers a free phone if they don’t need one. Rather, allow them to choose what they want included in their plan, including if circumstances change and they want something else after several months.
“Q4 always has variability, and in terms of the competitive environment in Q4, I think you’ll see more variability this year because of a set of circumstances, which is a staggered iPhone launch, the increase in device prices, the fact that you don’t necessarily have all of the variants, especially the sell-down variants. So we’ll see how that plays out, and our guide contemplates all of that,” Gopalan said.
Analysts’ takes on T-Mobile Q3
Analysts weren’t surprised that T-Mobile didn’t have a lot to add about the SpaceX situation, which could become clearer after SpaceX provides an investor update on its mobile roadmap.
At this point in the earnings season, “admittedly there’s not much to add. Momentum remains strong but stock upside could be limited until SPCX unknowns become knowns,” said TD Cowen analyst Gregory Williams in a note for investors.
All said, T-Mobile posted a strong quarter. “The best value, best network and best experience value proposition is clearly resonating with implied industry-leading postpaid phone adds, ARPA up 4.2% Y/Y, service revenue up 6%, postpaid service revenue up 9%, and EBITDA up 11%. Momentum should continue given the relatively tame competitive environment,” Williams said.
In his report after the earnings call, Moffett noted that T-Mobile’s stock price has dropped by 44% since March 2025 and the premium to Verizon and AT&T has evaporated. Still, T-Mobile has repeatedly beaten and raised on its financial results.
“Objectively, T-Mobile is by far the industry’s fastest grower,” Moffett said. “That faster growth isn’t being rewarded.”
The disconnect between growth and valuation is an opportunity, he said. “We see T-Mobile as meaningfully undervalued. But at the same time, we concede that T-Mobile’s lack of disclosure about unit metrics makes it much harder to forecast how and when that valuation dislocation will close.”
This article was updated October 29 with additional analyst commentary.
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