Earlier today, T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert spoke at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia Conference. The executive talked about the company’s key priorities for 2H 2021 with focus on their lead in 5G.
Here are some of the points that Sievert highlighted during the event:
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On ARPU: “Look, one of them that I’m excited about is revenue per customer. Magenta MAX is a blockbuster success. In fact, we just re-guided now on this year that instead of being plus or minus 1%, we’ll be within a 0.5% of last year’s ARPU. And sequentially up this quarter versus last quarter. And so we’re looking great on ARPU. ARPA will be significantly up year-over-year so that’s a growth area for us. Magenta MAX is the best expression of the best 5G network and we’re all over it. And so, we see potential there.”
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On buybacks: “I mean we will commence [returning capital to shareholders] when we believe the cash flows are there to support both our debt objectives and the buybacks. And assuming that the board agrees at that time. So, that’s our philosophy, I’ll put it that way. And there are circumstances where that going to happen sooner than 2023… I can’t comment on spectrum options or other investments we may make, and that would potentially compete for those dollars in the very near term. But there are scenarios where we would get go in sooner… We’re trying to be extremely transparent, and we’ve made it clear that our aspiration and it’s a priority for us to both achieve investment grade corporate family as well as to get started as soon as practicable on buybacks in that magnitude of $60 billion. And that’s just the beginning, in 2023 or maybe sooner, 2024 and 2025. And the enormous annual cash flow potential of this business, 2025 and beyond is very, very exciting.
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On handset deals/promotions: “Our competitors are focused on handset promotions, which as I said, we’re focused on handset promotions for a reason because 5G is our strategic advantage. We’re way ahead. That’s why we want everybody to have a 5G handset so we can showcase this lead. Why are our competitors doing it and then coming to conferences like this saying it’s a genius move? I actually – I can’t figure that out because what they’re doing in effect is spending – get this. I mean $1,000 – Verizon is spending and AT&T is – $1,000 to get you to move from a phone that works about the same on AT&T and Verizon to a 5G phone that works way better on T-Mobile. That’s what they’re spending $1,000 to do. And then coming to a conference like this thing, and saying it’s economic. We’ll see if it turns out to be economic or not. But it definitely plays to our advantages the more our competitors focus on 5G phones because they know whether they’ll tell you or not, and we know we are way ahead in 5G and positioned to stay ahead for years to come.”
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On home broadband: “We are on pace. In fact, August was the biggest month in our history on home broadband. And you know and that probably is just because September is not in the books yet. So we’re – it’s looking great. We’ve had more demand than supply, so during some of 2021, we’ve been somewhat supply constrained on the home router side, and that seems to be abating now, which is terrific, and bodes very well for the next few months.”
If you are interested to learn more about the event, you can check out a replay of the presentation here.
Source: T-Mobile