T-Mobile Says It's Gaining Business Customers After Carrier Announces Best-Ever Q1 For Business Segment
T-Mobile, a rising star in the wireless consumer market, says it's also gaining momentum with business customers.
The Bellevue, Wash.-based carrier revealed that Q1 2017 was the strongest first quarter ever for T-Mobile @Work, its business services segment. T-Mobile last week posted service revenues of $7.33 billion, which jumped 11 percent year over year.
At the same time, the number of T-Mobile @Work business subscribers has more than doubled over the past two years, Mike Sievert, T-Mobile's chief marketing officer, wrote in a blog post Friday morning.
T-Mobile launched its channel program in 2014. The following year, it launched "Un-carrier for Business," its plan to provide U.S.-based small businesses with affordable and easy-to-understand wireless plans.
T-Mobile's boisterous CEO and president, John Legere, pledged in 2015 that the carrier would be doing for businesses what it had already been doing for consumers by eliminating the pain points associated with buying wireless plans with more "transparent" and predictable pricing.
The wireless provider has kept that promise, according to an executive with one solution provider and T-Mobile partner who requested anonymity.
The solution provider is in the process of kicking off a new wireless venture in which it will resell Cradlepoint routers and rely on T-Mobile for mobile connectivity. The partner executive said it selected T-Mobile as its primary carrier in the U.S. because of the carrier's "very aggressive" data usage plans.
The competitive state of the wireless market has created an opportunity for players like T-Mobile to shine, thanks to its clear pricing model in which business customers and consumers receive the advertised price, and aren't hit with unexpected overage charges, the executive added.
"That's exactly why we chose T-Mobile to move forward with our Cradlepoint deployment," the executive said.
T-Mobile also offers partners good margins compared to other wireless carriers, and is one of the only carriers to pay agent partners through a residual commission model, according to the T-Mobile partner.
"That's how we like to be paid, and that's another reason why it makes sense for us to work with [T-Mobile]," the partner said.
In his blog post, T-Mobile's Sievert said, "Businesses shouldn’t have to waste time wondering if they got the best deal on their wireless service. With T-Mobile, our best price is our only price."