T-Mobile US, Inc.
T-Mobile US, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, provides wireless communications services in the United States, Puerto Rico, and the United States Virgin Islands. The company offers voice, messaging, and data services to postpaid, prepaid, and wholesale and other services customers. It also provides wireless devices, including smartphones, wearables, tablets, home broadband gateways, headsets, and other mobile communication devices, as well as accessories; financing through equipment installment plans; reinsurance for device insurance policies and extended warranty contracts. The company offers services under the T-Mobile, Metro by T-Mobile, and Mint Mobile brands through its owned and operated retail stores, customer care channels, national retailers, and its websites, as well as through T-Mobile, Metro by T-Mobile, and Mint Mobile apps. It also sells devices to dealers and other third-party distributors for resale through independent third-party retail outlets and various third-party websites. It has 700 MHz wireless spectrum licenses. The company was founded in 1994 and is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington. T-Mobile US, Inc. operates as a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom AG.
What does it do?
T-Mobile is one of the three major wireless carriers in the US — the companies that keep your phone connected to calls, texts, and the internet. When you pay a monthly phone bill, buy a new iPhone on a payment plan, or use a mobile hotspot at home, that's exactly the kind of service T-Mobile sells. They cover over 300 million people across the US, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands. Think of them as the pipes that your phone's data flows through — and they charge you every month to keep those pipes open.
T-Mobile is the fastest-growing of the three major US carriers, having overtaken AT&T in subscriber count after its 2020 merger with Sprint — a deal that reshaped the entire industry. Investors care right now because T-Mobile is expanding beyond traditional phone plans into home internet, using its 5G network to compete directly with Comcast and Charter in a market worth hundreds of billions. With $196 billion in market value, it's not a small bet — it's a signal that the market believes wireless infrastructure is one of the most durable businesses in America.
How does it make money?
T-Mobile makes most of its money from monthly subscription fees — postpaid customers (people on contracts) and prepaid customers (pay-as-you-go) pay recurring bills for voice, text, and data. In 2024, total revenue hit $88.3 billion, up from $81.4 billion the year before — an 8.5% jump driven largely by subscriber growth and higher average revenue per user. They also sell phones and devices, often through installment plans where customers pay off a $1,000 iPhone over 24 months, which keeps people locked into T-Mobile's network. A newer and fast-growing revenue stream is T-Mobile Home Internet, which offers broadband service using their 5G towers instead of physical cables.
Why do investors care?
The growth story is really two things: winning more phone subscribers from Verizon and AT&T, and converting those 5G towers into a home broadband business that doesn't require digging up streets to lay fiber. T-Mobile Home Internet has already signed up over 5 million households and is growing at a pace that makes legacy cable companies nervous. For the thesis to work, T-Mobile needs to keep its network quality advantage over rivals, hold pricing power as competition heats up, and prove that home internet can scale into a genuinely profitable second business. Net income of $11 billion in 2024 shows the core business is already very profitable — now investors want to see that expand.
Deep Dive
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