T-mobile's q2 earnings reveal mixed bag: slumping growth, rising churn

T-Mobile's second-quarter earnings report paints a picture of mixed signals for the wireless giant. Despite reporting a 7.9% year-over-year increase in total revenue to $22.79 billion, key metrics revealed a more complicated landscape.

Postpaid subs growth stalls, churn rises

The company added 277,000 postpaid net accounts in the quarter, a 13% decline from the same period last year. This marks a shift from focusing on postpaid phone net additions, as T-Mobile now emphasizes the multi-line, multi-device nature of its customer base.

However, the news isn't all bad. Postpaid Average Revenue Per Account (ARPA) grew 2% year-over-year to $152.91, and the carrier ended the quarter with 34.7 million postpaid accounts.

But a worrying trend emerged as postpaid churn, or the percentage of subscribers leaving the network, rose to 0.99% from 0.92% in the same quarter last year. This follows a 1.04% churn rate in Q1, hinting at potential dissatisfaction among T-Mobile's customer base.

The rising churn could be attributed to the carrier's aggressive push towards digital transactions, as it begins requiring all upgrades and add-a-line transactions, including those done in-store, to be processed through its T-Life app starting August 1.

Earnings per share up, but investors sell off

On the earnings front, T-Mobile reported a 5.3% increase in diluted earnings per share to $2.99, outpacing the $2.84 reported in Q2 2025. Net income rose 0.5% to $3.24 billion.

Yet, investor reaction to the report has been swift and negative, with shares plummeting $13.07, or 6.85%, to $177.87 as of 12:30 PM EDT.

T-Mobile maintains its postpaid net account addition guidance for 2026, expecting between 950,000 and 1.05 million new subscribers, the same range it projected after Q1 earnings.