T-Mobile posts Q3 2012 earnings, loses 492,000 contract customers

T-Mobile announced its Q3 2012 earnings this morning, and things aren't looking all too great. The carrier brought in $4.9 billion in revenue, which is 6.4% less than this time last year, and they earned $1.2 billion, a decline of 15.2%. However, T-Mobile's biggest loss has to be the drop of almost 500,000 contract customers in just Q3 alone.

However, T-Mobile was able to tack on 160,000 contract users in Q3, but their average revenue per user dropped to $42.78, a decrease of 7.4% from the same time last year, and around $20 less than some of their competitors. And considering that contract customers are more lucrative than pre-paid customers, T-Mobile took quite a hit with the loss of 492,000 subscribers.

Then again, on top of the new 160,000 customers in Q3 (which they say is mostly due to the iPhone 5 launch), T-Mobile also brought in 365,000 new pre-paid customers, which might seem that these numbers would offset the 492,000 loss of contract customers, but T-Mobile says that their contract subscribers bring in roughly twice as much revenue than their pre-paid customers.

However, it's not all bad news. T-Mobile notes that its $4 billion 4G network strategy is making great strides, with HSPA+ rolling out to several cities, and the carrier's 2013 launch of LTE still on track. Hopefully, the network improvements and the unlimited data plans will be able to get T-Mobile out of a rut.