Phoning In: Telecom’s Big Two Report

As in previous quarters, new sales skewed toward the high end of the business, mainly data-intensive services, as the multiyear trend of losing “basic” phone customers continued.

The company added 1.4 million net new retail wireless connections in the second quarter, all of which were post-paid users. Smart phones accounted for about 304,000 of these new connections, with tablets accounting for the remainder.

Smartphone penetration has climbed to about 75 percent of its wireless customer base, up from 72 percent at the end of March.

Each account now averages almost three devices–one of the main reasons that average revenue per wireless account ticked up by 4.7 percent and customer turnover remains well below the industry average.

Customer churn declined by 13 basis points in the second quarter, settling at 0.94 percent. That’s a clear sign that whatever marketing rivals have done to pull away customers isn’t working very well.