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T-Mobile Has Added a Boatload More Customers This Quarter

And by “boatload” we mean “even more customers than last quarter.”

Asa Mathat

T-Mobile said Friday it continues to gain phone customers at a strong pace, with net additions as of September already greater than it had for all of last quarter.

Speaking at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia technology conference in New York, CEO John Legere said the company has matched last quarter in postpaid gains — that is, customers with good credit who pay their bills at the end of the month.

On the prepaid side, which includes the company’s MetroPCS brand, gains are even stronger. T-Mobile said it has already exceeded its customer gains from the same quarter a year ago and tripled the number of added customers it reported last quarter.

“Just got done giving the #Communacopia crowd a glimpse into how the #uncarrier is kicking ass and taking names,” Legere said on Twitter.

Last quarter, T-Mobile added 2.1 million net customers, including a million postpaid customers. It has twice this year raised its forecast for how many customers it expects to add.

https://twitter.com/JohnLegere/status/644904752501821440

Legere also told investors that T-Mobile plans to bid very aggressively in the Federal Communications Commision’s spectrum auction next year.

“Let’s be clear, we are showing up, we are going to be very aggressive, we do have the balance sheet and we’re preparing for it, and we will scoop up as much as humanly possible,” Legere said, noting that some rivals have talked about not bidding. “It will be the biggest mistake any of them ever made, if they don’t show up.”

Meanwhile, Verizon cautioned at the same conference Thursday that it expects next year’s earnings growth to be roughly flat from 2015 amid price competition and other factors.

“While well-positioned for the future, Verizon’s full-year 2016 earnings may plateau at 2015 levels as the company manages near-term impacts,” Verizon said.

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

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