T-Mobile USA's Q1 data revenues up 18% year-over-year

T-Mobile USA reported total first quarter revenues of $5.28 billion, down from $5.41 billion in the fourth quarter of 2009 and $5.40 billion a year earlier. According to T-Mobile USA, service revenues slipped to $4.63 billion, down from $4.65 billion in the previous quarter and $4.77 billion in Q1 of 2009--the operator blames both the sequential and year-over-year decline in service revenues on net losses of branded customers. T-Mobile USA lost 77,000 total subscribers during Q1 and now serves 33.7 million consumers--contract customers, including connected devices, now make up 79 percent of its total customer base, consistent with the previous quarter but down from 81 percent in the first quarter of 2009. 

Contract ARPU in the first quarter was $51, consistent with the fourth quarter of 2009 but down from $52 in the first quarter of 2009--T-Mobile credited the quarter-over-quarter consistency to data revenue growth offset by declining voice revenues, while citing higher proportion of connected devices for the year-over-year decline. Blended ARPU was $46, consistent with the fourth quarter of 2009 but off from $48 in Q1 2009.

T-Mobile USA said Q1 data service revenues increased 18 percent year-over-year to $1.10 billion. Data service revenues in the first quarter of 2010 represented 23.8 percent of blended ARPU, or $10.90 per customer, increasing from 22.2 percent/$10.20 per customer in the previous quarter and 19.6 percent/$9.40 per customer a year ago. T-Mobile adds that 5.2 million customers are now using 3G-capable converged devices like the MyTouchTM 3G, Motorola Cliq XT and BlackBerry Bold 9700, an increase of 33 percent from 3.9 million customers the previous quarter and up from 1.5 million customers in the first quarter of 2009. T-Mobile said that although messaging revenue remains a significant component of its data ARPU, increasing 3G data plan adoption is driving Internet access revenue growth.

For more on T-Mobile USA's Q1 results:
- read this release
- see this FierceWireless Q1 earnings page

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