T-Mobile just slid into the Top 3.
Despite an encouraging quarter, Sprint fell behind rival T-Mobile in total connections, and T-Mobile is now the third-largest carrier in the United States, according to multiple reports. Latest numbers show T-Mobile with 58.9 million U.S. customers vs. Sprint's 57 million.
The news comes after T-Mobile CEO John Legere claimed that the company had already surpassed Sprint back in February. Nearly six months later and the numbers now back that up, much to Legere's obvious delight and Sprint's definite dismay and even embarrassment.
T-Mobile signed up two million customers this quarter to Sprint's 675,000, but somewhat encouraging for the latter carrier is it reportedly only lost 12,000 post-paid subscribers this quarter compared with the 620,000 that it lost the same quarter in 2014.
"Over the past year, Sprint has made meaningful progress in our turnaround by improving our network performance and enhancing our overall value proposition," Sprint's CEO, Marcelo Claure, said in a statement to the media Tuesday (August 4), as reported by The Verge.
Legere scoffs at that sentiment, taking some time out of his Tuesday afternoon to boast about T-Mobile overtaking Sprint, before rubbing salt in Sprint's wounds.
Also, it looks like our prepaid numbers got a real “Boost” from @sprint! #thanksguys
— John Legere (@JohnLegere) August 4, 2015
They’re really making moves over there at @sprint! Like the move from 3rd to 4th…
Let's see how long T-Mobile can hold onto its newly-won third spot, now behind No. 1 Verizon and No. 2 AT&T for largest carriers in the U.S.
