Summary

  • T-Mobile significantly outperformed Verizon in net user gains in 2024.
  • Verizon’s adjusted earnings per share decreased in 2024.
  • T-Mobile’s rapid growth is attributed to the best US infrastructure and most reliable 5G network.

It doesn’t take a genius to recognize who the big three are in the mobile phone carrier landscape. T-Mobile, AT&T, and Verizon are synonymous now with their dominance, so much so that, even with the growing number of surprisingly good MVNOs, they’ll never be able to take sizable enough chunks out of the carriers they themselves depend upon. When it comes to net gains in users, however, both AT&T and T-Mobile severely dwarf Verizon’s efforts. Overall, however, T-Mobile took the crown last year.

T-Mobile


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It doesn’t matter how many accusations of price gouging T-Mobile gets hit with, because its user base is constantly growing. It added almost 40 times more customers than Verizon did in 2024, which is a staggeringly high number for what many consider a close battle between T-Mobile, Verizon, and AT&T (via Android Authority). Verizon said that it added 82,000 postpaid phone users, while AT&T added over 1.6 million. T-Mobile more than leads the pack with 3.1 million net adds in 2024.

Money might fall from trees for the big three

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There are some interesting takeaways from all three of the phone carriers’ end-of-year reports. Verizon’s adjusted earnings per share, which is a metric that tells how profitable each share is, adjusted for all sorts of extravagant reasons, was 12 cents down from 2023 ($4.59 in 2024, $4.71 in 2023). T-Mobile’s operations in 2024 resulted in an $11.3 billion net income, while AT&T’s net income was $12.3 billion. There is no question that these three companies are making so much more than we can even dream of, and even though there are slight differences in each of their reports, it’s hard to fathom how much $1 billion truly is. That’s how much more AT&T’s net income was than T-Mobile’s. You could buy a lot of phones with that money.

There’s no question in our minds that T-Mobile’s rapid growth is due to its infrastructure being the best in the US. According to Ookla, T-Mobile had the fastest and most reliable 5G Network in 2024, and even with its alleged deceptive practices resulting in a class action lawsuit, it continues churning along. Through a partnership with Starlink, it’s bringing satellite internet services to 500,000 miles of land across the US where cell towers aren’t available, and you can sign up to beta test it.