Performance of Top U.S. Carriers in 2014

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Providing services to millions of people and ruling the telecom sector of one of the most competitive and dynamic countries of the world, these are companies that have topped the charts as strong U.S. carriers of 2014. In an interesting and eventful year for the U.S. carriers, the race paced up with intense competition and aggressive price wars among major players.

Among the stronger U.S. carriers, Verizon, who is also the market leader in the telecom sector, generated the highest revenue from wireless services in the first three quarters owing to its large postpaid subscriber base and higher plan charges than its other competitors. Verizon can certainly manage to charge more for its services because of its network quality and wide 4G LTE and enhanced LTE coverage. Its LTE network covers about 500 locations, while XLTE has been launched in over 400 cities across the country. Verizon’s XLTE has the potential to be twice as fast as its existing 4G network, however, that depends on the user location. T-Mobile, in the man time, took the lead in the top line growth. Pushing its wireless revenues that grew over 21% year-over-year in the ninth period ending September 2014, it proudly boasted of robust postpaid subscriber gains (6.2 million). Sprint chased its competing carriers because of its declining user base and low ARPU (Average Revenue per User).

As far as EBITDA and EBITDA margins are concerned, Verizon yet again led its peers owing to its higher-margin plan offerings, bounded marketing expenses and lower proportion of customers opting for no-subsidy plans. Both Sprint and T-Mobile seem to be left behind the market leaders owing to their high marketing expenses and more humble service revenues. Although T-Mobile’s service revenues and margins have improved over the last few quarters, Sprint is supposed to face downward pressure in the near future based on its declining postpaid subscriber base and heightened competition.

In 2013, T-Mobile assumed control of MetroPCS and Sprint assumed control of Clearwire, after which AT&T closed its acquisition of Leap Wireless in 2014. Also, Cincinnati Bell announced its intention to slip out of the wireless business, and no longer exists on this list. Finally, Shentel has been added to this list as nTelos exits its Eastern markets.

While the fourth-quarter reporting period comes to a close, it’s time to start analyzing the information to spot out the carriers that slipped and those which managed to get ahead.

 

 

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