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T-Mobile US, Inc.

TMUSNasdaqGS

$168.18
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T-Mobile US, Inc.

$168.18
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TMUS Q3 2020 Earnings Call

November 5, 2020 at 12:00 AM

Company
TMUS
Quarter
Q3 2020
Date
November 5, 2020 at 12:00 AM
Speakers
1
Word Count
~8,053

Transcript Content

null
Thanks, guys. Mike Sievert (CEO): Hey, Jonathan.
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Just a quick question on your. Hey. Mike Sievert (CEO): If you didn't jump in there with a question after that operator said that four times, I was just going to thank everybody and end the call.
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My question is about your 5G go-to-market strategy. I believe you have a significant advantage with 2.5 gigahertz, as you mentioned. I think everyone on the call recognizes this advantage, but I'm curious if the consumer market is aware of it as well, and how you plan to communicate this message as we transition into the 5G era following the iPhone launch. Mike Sievert (CEO): Yes, they don't. This is a significant advantage for investors because perception often lags behind reality. This is an exciting aspect of our story. Over the past seven to eight years, we have successfully reinforced our value proposition with innovative Un-carrier moves. However, we haven't focused as much on communicating our network story. Now, we have an outstanding network story that is about to improve significantly. Currently, we have 30 million people experiencing our highest-capacity, highest-speed 5G and 270 million overall with 5G. That number will grow from 30 million to 100 million. The competition is barely advancing on their highest-capacity 5G, making it a clear difference that consumers will notice. Millions will have iPhone 12s with T-Mobile, where they will experience high-capacity 5G and enjoy speeds of hundreds of megabits per second. Their friends will be envious, and they will see our story unfold through advertisements. While synergies will reduce advertising and marketing expenses compared to pro forma combined, our CMO, Mark Staneff, is investing in the T-Mobile brand more than ever before. Overall, this will likely be beneficial for investors and presents opportunities for improvement. We are confident in our marketing capabilities, and there has already been some progress. Matt, would you like to share how the brand is performing?
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Yes, that's an excellent question. I appreciate your inquiry about how we will be recognized for our network. It's a remarkable situation to be in after years of being well-prepared for success in the marketplace. I want to emphasize that timing is crucial. We have just completed a quarter where we merged two brands into one in the postpaid market and achieved impressive results. We have been diligently working to ensure we get that right. Additionally, in the early stages of 5G messaging, we were not promoting something that was not yet available. Over the past year, we have been actively showcasing our nationwide 5G with extended coverage, and Neville is developing an outstanding network. It's on its way and will arrive very soon. As Mike mentioned, we are better positioned than ever to effectively convey our message in the marketplace, highlighting both our network and the incredible prices and value we offer to customers. We have experienced great success, and early indications are showing significant improvements in network perception. All the leading indicators are trending positively, and we have not even begun to share the full story that I know you are eager to hear. I won’t catch anyone off guard, and I'll also remind you that we have a long history of disrupting the marketplace and innovating with our marketing, so stay tuned.
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Great. Thanks, guys. Mike Sievert (CEO): Cool, Jonathan. Great to hear from you. Operator, why don't we go back to the phone for the next question? null (Operator): Certainly. Our next question comes from Phil Cusick with J.P. Morgan.
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Thank you, Mike. I thought I might have missed my turn there for a moment. I appreciate the guidance you provided, as it reflects your perspective on competition in the fourth quarter. Could you elaborate on how you view the market, especially considering the more aggressive promotions this year compared to last? Are you concerned about the industry's rationality moving forward? Also, can you discuss the churn within the Sprint customer base? How does it compare to the T-Mobile base over the past few months, and how are you managing to retain those customers? Thank you. Mike Sievert (CEO): You bet. It's great to hear from you, Phil. Yes. First of all, if you look at the promotions in the industry, actually to us, they look a lot like last year's. There are obviously some changes around the margins. Look, the phones underlying are a little bit more expensive from Apple, but generally speaking, we see a promotional environment a lot like last year's. It feels really intense, but that's because it's the fourth quarter and it's because there is a big iPhone here. So, generally speaking, I don't see a trend line there that's at all concerning. As it relates to churn, now there is a trend line I'd love to talk about. We believe we have the best year-over-year churn performance in the industry by far. When you look at pro forma combined, remember this is a blended 0.9% postpaid phone churn that we delivered. Last year we had 0.9% without Sprint and Sprint was churning at about 2%. So, we blended it all together and delivered that kind of performance; it shows you one thing, Sprint customers are starting to benefit very significantly from this combination. Of course, on the T-Mobile side, although we don’t disclose it separately, man, that's a great underlying performance there as well, really good. So, we're delighted. Even though we have the best year-over-year churn performance down to 0.9%, I also see churn as a tailwind thesis for investors because we have room to run. We delivered all of this financial performance: $7.1 billion in EBITDA, simultaneously doing that and delivering our best growth quarter in history with 2 million net new additions with that 0.9% churn that you know we’ve shown with our T-Mobile brand we know how to get down. I think it’s a great potential tailwind on our story. But let's talk about promotions because I know you're not the only one that's going to want to talk about what's happening out there, and it is a bit of a misnomer, I think, what's happening. Matt, do you want to share what you're seeing as the quarter is unfolding? I know everybody is curious about the view from the marketing seat.
null
Yes. Thank you, Mike, and thank you for the question, Phil. To reiterate what Mike mentioned, the iPhone cycle this year is different from previous years. It is more spread out and occurring later in the quarter. As we know, Q4 tends to be back-end loaded, with offers becoming more competitive as customers prepare for Black Friday and Christmas. What we are witnessing is a shift in the schedule, with more expensive phones launching first. We've already noticed adjustments in the offers that have been made, and there is a new pre-order starting tomorrow for the iPhone. The marketplace is evolving. However, as Mike pointed out, when comparing the phone, the plan, and the network experience on an apples-to-apples basis, the offers remain largely consistent with one exception. There are more aggressive base offers and retention offers available, which raises questions about the market dynamics. We are well positioned to succeed as we always are. I want to remind you that Q4 is typically back-end loaded compared to the early days of an iPhone launch. We are set up to succeed and believe we have a solid and disciplined strategy to maintain our momentum and gain market share.
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I think the fear has been that some aggressive retention offers are affecting the marketplace. Thank you.
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No, that's okay. Keep going. Mike Sievert (CEO): Yes. There is a latency, but you were going to pile on a little bit.
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I was going to say the fear was that some aggressive retention offers would nail down the sort of porting opportunity in the industry and you would grow more slowly. Clearly, that's not what you see. Have you seen less sort of porting opportunity in the last couple of weeks? Mike Sievert (CEO): Well, switching is muted. I mean, if you look across the span of Q3, as well as what's happening in Q4, switching is down. You see that because churn is down. But what Matt was just saying, I just think is important to underscore. We've seen environments like this. We've seen highly intense environments with lots of switching, and our team has got a flexible model and we find a way to post the growth and we’re just really proud of that. We’ve been at this for a long time as a share-taker. We invest with discipline. We try not to overdo it. But in a muted switching environment, very muted, we delivered the highest growth in our history this quarter. It really shows, I think more than anything, two things: one, how our team executes. Every company is something. Our company is great at execution. And two, that being executing against a synergy-backed model is a real benefit because we’re able to unlock the value of those synergies and invest them in growth and still deliver the financial performance and period, as I said in my prepared remarks.
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Thanks, again, Mike. Mike Sievert (CEO): Cool. All right. Operator, we're on a roll. Let's just keep going to the phone. Meanwhile, I'll ask Peter to scan across Twitter and see what he sees. null (Operator): Our next question comes from John Hodulik with UBS.
null
Great. Thanks, guys. Two if I could. First, maybe Mike on the new TV service. Could you just talk a little bit about the positioning of that virtual product? What do you expect it to do for your sort of economics of the business? Is it for churn reduction? Do you think it could be profitable? And then a couple of the media companies today sort of expressed some push back around the packaging and suggested that those offers may change. So if you could comment on that, that'd be great? And then, I don't know if Neville is on, but I thought the comments around synergies for next year suggested a bit of a pull-forward. It sounds like you really getting into the meat of the network integration in '21. And then if he's around, if he could talk about how that's going and how you expect that to ramp next year would be great? Thanks. Mike Sievert (CEO): Sounds great. We'll start with the second one on network and then circle back and I'll answer your TVision question, but you're on to a great point. This is a critical year for us in '21. You want to talk about it, Neville?
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Yes. I'll cover it quickly, John. Tremendous progress. The pace and acceleration of our plans inside 2020 has been pretty remarkable. The main start that I’d focus on for you in terms of progress we're making on migration, first, 15% of the Sprint postpaid traffic already on the T-Mobile network. We’re building out that capacity. You heard Mike talk about all of the work we have ongoing upgrading the network. Migration is in full swing and what follows on migration, of course, is decomposition and synergy acceleration. We’ve already scored some decomposition activity inside 2020, but we will start to really ramp and accelerate that in '21 and that is ahead of our original plans. The primary kind of decomposition years were really '23 and '24, and you're seeing that move forward in a material way from a timeline perspective. So super pleased with the progress. We want to get every customer on that one final T-Mobile network with all that 5G goodness that Mike talked about. We're going to be famous for network in this Company. That's our goal and our ambition, and we want all of our customers on that network enjoying and exploring that 5G capability as fast and as soon as we can while delivering on that synergy ambition, and we’re very confident on both fronts. Mike Sievert (CEO): That's obviously going to be a big part of our story next time we talk when we release earnings and provide more in-depth guidance for '21. We're really excited about the potential because we're ahead of schedule. It is primarily network-driven, and Neville and his team are moving faster than we expected. TVision is also exciting, and I'm glad we got it out. We've discussed TVision for a long time and made sure it was ready in time for our 5G broadband launch, despite the merger and other distractions. To answer your question, that's a significant aspect of our plan. We're approaching the home broadband segment seriously as it will play a crucial role in growing our business and generating profit. Having a full suite of services is necessary to effectively serve customers in this area. Additionally, I believe there are potential benefits for our mobile offerings. Customers rely on us for connectivity and appreciate our brand. We're providing a streamlined, elegant solution that adds value for T-Mobile customers and addresses many pain points in the industry. As we mentioned at our launch, we're very excited and just getting started. I've often said we aim to be a strong partner to media companies, as we are not a media company ourselves but a dedicated network and connections provider. This approach has a significant future for us as the world shifts towards an OTT landscape. Regarding your specific question, yes, we are adhering to all our media contracts. Simultaneously, we're collaborating because we are open to suggestions. If changes benefit customers and help us address their issues, we're willing to consider them. This is just the beginning—a move to un-carrier status, aimed at delighting customers and establishing a home broadband business that will be a key part of our profit strategy. I hope that clarifies things.
null
Yes. That was great. Thanks, Mike and Neville. Mike Sievert (CEO): You bet. Did you find some ones online you wanted to hit? Peter Osvaldik (CFO): There is a great one from Cameron Berkshire around, when will the home Internet be able to use your guys' awesome 5G network? Mike Sievert (CEO): Soon is my answer. We haven't specified a date, but it's coming soon. Currently, we're in a pilot program focused on 4G LTE, and our 4G LTE customers are really enjoying it. This is an important business for us, and we want to make sure we get it right. We're taking our time, learning how to better serve and satisfy our customers. Consider the capacity of the network that Neville is building; since all the capital for that network is funded by the mobile business, we can provide 5G home Internet in a cost-effective manner because the infrastructure is already in place. There are many areas in the country where typical mobile usage won't utilize all of that capacity, and that’s where we can offer fantastic deals on 5G home Internet. You won’t need a physical connection dug to your house, and you won’t be reliant on outdated DSL copper wires. Instead, you'll be able to access 5G, which is significantly faster than today’s home Internet options, even in well-served areas. I'm truly excited about it, and it's coming soon. I can't disclose the exact date. Sorry for not providing a specific answer. Would you like another question from Twitter, or should we proceed to the phone? Peter Osvaldik (CFO): I think there are a lot of congratulations. People want some T-shirts, Mike. So we'll have to figure out how to… Mike Sievert (CEO): Yes. We'll take those great quarter guys tweet and stay long, but I think we'll go back to the phone. Operator, who's next? null (Operator): Next will be Michael Rollins with Citi.
null
Thanks. A couple of quick questions. First, curious because you've now had the Sprint assets in your possession for, I guess, over six months now. Have you seen any opportunities to monetize some of the assets inside of Sprint that may not be core or strategic to what you're doing in the future? And then secondly, if you could talk a bit about what's happening with device leasing? In your new marketing plans how customers are responding? And your progress to moving customers over to a more traditional EIP program? Thanks. Mike Sievert (CEO): Sounds great. We'll start with Sprint and device leasing and everything happening with financing. I'm going to turn to Matt Staneff on that, and then we'll answer your question about the Sprint assets.
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Yes, Mike, thanks for that question. In early August, I think it was August 2, we retired the Sprint brand, but what we also did is converted the value propositions in the models within the Sprint base to match that of what we're used to at T-Mobile, and we're seeing great success with that, by the way. Great success with customers continuing to come in and upgrade. It’s actually opened up a lot of opportunities as well in terms of access to offers and promotions, and the ability for Sprint customers to upgrade a phone when they want to and not be beholden to other issues with the legacy products. We're still using a blend like we do at T-Mobile, as we have done at T-Mobile, but the progress we're making is really good. Over time, it's going to blend and match that more closely to what we're used to on the T-Mobile side as we continue to manage the Sprint customer base and be there to serve them for and when they want to upgrade. Mike Sievert (CEO): It's early days, and I can't provide any significant insights on that question, but I can mention two things. First, the capabilities we've inherited from the Sprint team and their know-how are impressive. Evaluating this team based on the previous business performance of standalone Sprint is misleading. That company had numerous financial challenges, and it's easy to underestimate what they can contribute, which is completely incorrect. Now that we're involved, we've started adopting many best practices from them, which is exciting, including the team itself. Regarding your question, there are also certain businesses and capabilities, such as a wireline capability that T-Mobile never had on its own. We're carefully examining that and other opportunities. Unfortunately, I can't provide many details about that process yet because we're still in the evaluation stage, but we'll share updates when we have them. Thank you for the question.
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Thank you. Mike Sievert (CEO): Okay. Go back to the phones. null (Operator): Next will be Walter Piecyk with LightShed.
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Thanks. Mike Sievert (CEO): Hi, Walt.
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The first question is for Mike. I think the first question is for Neville regarding the overall synergies. Once everything is complete, how many of the Sprint sites will remain? Additionally, how quickly can you increase the traffic from 15% to, say, 60% or 80%? What should we anticipate in terms of timing for that? Mike Sievert (CEO): My favorite number is a 100%, Walt, that's the goal. So please don't reduce Neville's goals.
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So how quickly can you get to 100%, Neville?
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I can't see you but hear you. So, how have you been? So, on the coverage and capacity opportunity with the Sprint sites, we are on this target to deliver about 35,000 sites that would be decommissioned over the coming years. That would leave 12,000 or 13,000 Sprint sites that we would bring into the T-Mobile network effectively for capacity and/or coverage. We're doing a lot of work across both networks now. I don't see those numbers materially changing, Walt. The target network, obviously, we're over well over 100,000 sites today, but the target networks in kind of the 80,000 range, 80,000 to 85,000 sites. We’re going to decommission a bunch. We're going to add some too, right? We still have areas where we want to add some new investment, but target range 82,000 to 83,000 sites. That's where we are today. Very confident. We’re doing a lot of work to make sure we fully understand the coverage growth and capabilities that we need to deliver along with everything from that 5G. In terms of the traffic number, I mean, I'm really pleased, Walt, we're six months in and we're already at 15% on that postpaid traffic base. That's pretty remarkable. I didn't anticipate we would make that much progress in a short number of really weeks and months. You look at that run rate, where will we be this time next year? I hope to be in the numbers that you talk about. I'm not going to commit and say we'll get it all done in, say, 2021. It’s going to run clearly into 2022. But the goal and ambition of the team here is to really drive all of this goodness on 5G and LTE capacity into the customer base of the Sprint and the T-Mobile customers in '21. Mike talked about this huge plan and execution phase we’re in to bring mid-band 5G to 200 million people in '21. That's a massive goal, we're well on track, feel very confident about delivery on that as we'll get to 100 million this year alone. That capacity and capability is going to be foundational to that migration opportunity. So, all things are moving very well. I'm just delighted with our progress that we've made in a short number of months, and I'm very confident in beating the targets that we put out there whenever that was, a year or so back. So things are going very well, and that migration volume on traffic will continue to grow at a real pace. Mike Sievert (CEO): That's obviously going to be a big part of our story next time we talk when we release earnings. Give you some more in-depth guidance on '21, but we're so excited about the potential because we're just way ahead of schedule. It is mostly network-driven, and Neville and team are running faster than we had expected in our model. So that's really exciting. TVision, also really exciting. Well, I'll ask Peter to scan across Twitter and see what he sees for the final question. null (Operator): Let's go to the phone for the final two questions. Operator, who's next? Certainly. Our next question comes from Craig Moffett with MoffettNathanson.
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Hi. Thank you. I wonder maybe we could stay with the Business services conversation that you were just having. You talked about being in the sales process and getting in front of customers. How much of the sales process decision-making among, particularly enterprise and government customers, is already based on expectations around 5G? What are the applications, and is it latency or IoT? What are the applications in 5G that you see starting to drive decision-making in the enterprise market? Mike Sievert (CEO): Yes. Craig, I'll be brief on this one instead of tossing it out. The answer is yes, but it's not necessarily yet at scale driving our business centered around new applications. That's common. What's driving our business right now is reliable, high-capacity network leadership on smartphones. There are plenty of other things that we're working with customers on. But if you’re asking what’s contributing to our results in getting us in the door, it’s that unlike consumers—and this is really interesting because it goes to the premise that we— I think the very first question was consumer perception of our network. Unlike consumers, businesses test this stuff. They’ll check out 100 phones and run them through the ringer for six weeks and then decide. When they do that we’re winning. Especially to the premise of your question, when the question is, who’s got the best 5G coverage and capacity and experience? Because it’s just—not even close right now and they know it, we’re pulling further away from the pack. Businesses want their employees connected right now more than they ever have. They need that connection to be reliable and they need it right now especially to be high-capacity and that’s what we’re able to offer. As we just said, Mike and team just posted the biggest quarter in our history for TFB, we’re so proud of them but this is really more than anything a story about network leadership, we’ve kind of caught up on LTE. The real story is how far ahead we are for—on 5G and how well positioned we are to the premise of your question, Craig, to stay ahead for the duration of the 5G era.
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And so, are customers looking out and I'm really pre-planning for 2023 and '24 when my enterprise is going to need these services and I want to be on the T-Mobile network now in preparation? Mike Sievert (CEO): I don't think that's what's driving our business. Yes, of course, they are doing that and with a time frame sooner than that. But right now what's driving our business is the dynamic I talked about. So a lot of that can be additive when it comes to the low-latency, high-capacity experiences, network as a service for enterprises, automation services, all the things— the augmented reality, virtual reality, all the things that we can deliver with a high-capacity, low-latency network, most of those things are still in our future as it relates to how they can contribute to growth. What’s contributing right now is that they understand our story that we're out in front and we’re going to stay out in front. I think that’s a lot of comfort to somebody picking a partner in the 5G space.
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That's great. Thank you. Mike Sievert (CEO): Okay. Great to hear from you. Let’s go to what I think is going to be our last question, right? Because the time frame, I want to be respectful. We said 2:30. Operator, let’s go to the last question. null (Operator): And that question comes from Simon Flannery with Morgan Stanley.
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Great. Thanks for fitting me in. Mike, great results, but the whole industry had some pretty robust subscriber numbers both on the postpaid side and on the prepaid side, which was impressive given that there wasn't really a new iPhone cycle in Q3. Any sense on the sustainability of this and what you see? Is it more second devices? Is it more younger people, etc., maybe using some of the money they are not spending on other things in this environment? So any color there would be great. And any update on the Shenandoah negotiations next steps and timing on that? Thanks. Mike Sievert (CEO): Sounds great. Well, on the first one, you have to look underneath everybody's report. When you look underneath ours, you saw postpaid phones again leading the industry, very strong performance on the centerpiece that we've always focused on. The prepaid leader, T-Mobile continuing to grow from a leadership position, which is not something you've been able to see postpaid leaders do reliably in the past, so that's great. You saw our great outsized performance on postpaid other, driven by a number of different dynamics, including those dynamics you talked about. People adding to their relationships with us, but also new opportunities in TFB. We spent some time on the call talking about. So that happens when you double click into ours. When you double click into our competitors, there are some gymnastics. A lot of the big numbers have to do with like reversing accruals from previous quarters that were too conservative, or strange things in the prepaid space having to do with connected cars and accrual reversals that when you really look underneath it, I don't think cricket's crowing at all. In fact, I think they reduced. You really have to look through the reports right now because COVID made things so difficult. What you get from us is transparency, lots and lots of it, you got to work a little harder to get underneath the reports of our competitors. But I think you're seeing because of this public sector dynamic you’re also seeing some terrific category growth. As for Shentel, do we want to say anything, give an update on how that’s we can’t, right? Yeah, I hate to end on no, we have no response. But we're following a process. The original agreement is that we had with a couple of these partners called for us to have the rights to buy and there is a prescribed process on valuation and we're following that process and we just don’t have anything to report. So, I'm ending this call on a no comment. That's great. Listen, you guys, thank you for your in. We’re so proud of the results that the Company was able to post. Really look forward to talking to you again when we report the full-year and double click with a longer conversation with our 2021 Analyst Day, so stay tuned for all that. Thanks, everybody. Peter Osvaldik (CFO): Absolutely. Thank you everyone for tuning in. Operator, go ahead and close the call. null (Operator): Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes the T-Mobile U.S. third quarter 2020 earnings call. If you have any further questions, you may contact the Investor Relations or media departments. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect, and have a pleasant day.