Dallas – Flat-rate prepaid carrier
posted its best-ever quarterly
increase in net new subscribers in the first quarter.
The carrier also posted a 23 percent
gain in revenues to $1.19 billion, a 38 percent gain in operating income to
$145 million, and a 149 percent gain in net income to $56 million.
The number of net new subscribers
grew 21 percent to 726,000 from the year-ago gain of 691,000, bringing the
subscriber base to 8.88 million.
In other metrics, the company said
it reduced first-quarter churn rate to 3.1 percent from a year-ago 3.7 percent
and boosted its average revenue per subscriber (ARPU) to $40.42 from a year-ago
$39.83. The percentage of subscribers using a smart phone grew to about 20
percent.
In an investors’ conference call,
executives said they currently offer 4G LTE service in all of their 14 core
markets and will begin testing Voice over LTE technology by the end of the
year.
