T-Mobile: Why Equipment Revenues Are Important

Mobile operators break down their wireless sales into equipment and service revenues. Wireless equipment revenues include handset and tablet sales, while service revenues include subscription charges for prepaid and postpaid customers.

In this part, we’ll discuss T-Mobile’s (TMUS) equipment revenue trend over the past few quarters. In the first quarter, T-Mobile’s equipment revenues rose ~6.9% YoY (year-over-year) to $2.52 billion from $2.35 billion.

According to the company’s first-quarter investor factbook, “Year-over-year, the increase was primarily related to higher average revenue per device sold due to an increase in the high-end device mix and lower promotions; partially offset by an 8% decrease in the number of devices sold, excluding purchased leased devices.”

In the first quarter, T-Mobile’s equipment revenues included $0.161 billion in lease revenues and $2.36 billion in non-lease revenues.

In the quarter ending on March 31, AT&T’s (T) wireless equipment revenues from its combined domestic operations fell ~4.5% YoY to $3.78 billion. Sprint’s (S) wireless equipment revenues rose ~25.6% YoY to $2.79 billion.