Miami— No-contract cellular provider TracFone Wireless expanded its customer base by 12.3 percent to 21.6 million in its fiscal third quarter ending September, and posted a revenue gain of 28.6 percent, to $1.28 billion.
The company also posted EBITDA growth of 72.3 percent to $190 million, Mexico-based parent America Movil reported.
The gains came in large part from TracFone’s acquisition in June of no-contract provider Simple Mobile. TracFone’s gain of 2.4 million subscribers includes more than 1 million subscribers picked up with the acquisition.
TracFone also reported a 13.8 percent gain in average revenue per user to $18, and a churn rate that fell to 3.9 percent from the year-ago 4.2 percent.
TracFone also markets service under the Straight Talk and NET 10 brands and the Safe Link Wireless brand. The latter is a government-subsidized lifeline service to the poor.
TracFone’s Mexico City-based parent, carrier America Movil, reported a 4.5 percent revenue gain to 192.8 billion pesos ($14.8 billion) and a 66.8 percent gain in net income to 30.6 billion pesos ($2.35 billion).
For the year to date, America Movil’s revenues were up 8.6 percent to 577.1 billion pesos, and net income was up 15.2 percent to 76.5 billion pesos.
America Movil is Latin America’s largest cellphone carrier with 255.9 million wireless subscribers in Latin America and North America as of Sept. It also recently bought a 27.7 percent stake in KPN, the Netherland landline and wireless operator, and a 22.8 percent stake in Telekom Austria, also a landline and wireless operator.
TracFone itself doesn’t operate a network but wholesales service from U.S. carriers.
