Verizon Wireless (NYSE: VZ) and AT&T (NYSE: T) continue to pull away from the pack in the U.S., with Sprint (NYSE: S) Nextel and T-Mobile USA increasingly being left behind, especially when it comes to adding subscribers. The disparity begs the question, what is the plan of attack for Sprint and T-Mobile?
In the second quarter, both Verizon and AT&T were able to add more than 1 million net new subscribers, while Sprint lost nearly a quarter million and T-Mobile USA gained a paltry 325,000 customers. With near saturation being reached in the U.S., growth will only be more difficult and carriers will have to focus on getting consumers to switch services.
Sprint’s turnaround has already been a year in the making. After fixing its customer service problems, it’s now focusing on offering bargain unlimited plans and prepaid wireless services, through Boost Mobile and Virgin Mobile (NYSE: VM), which it recently acquired. For attracting higher-paying post-paid customers, it has secured at least a six-month exclusive on the Palm (NSDQ: PALM) Pre, however, manufacturing shortages and a general lack of enthusiasm has left analysts wondering how successful that has been.
Meanwhile, T-Mobile USA’s niche is harder to define. The historically value-oriented company has placed its bets on the Android operating platform, but that’s yet to turn into big revenues. What’s worse, is that the operator is fighting the general trend of decreasing voice revenues, while also failing to significantly boost data revenues to compensate. In fact, T-Mobile significantly trails behind all the other carriers when it comes to making money off data. It said in the second quarter that data revenues totaled about $9.90 per customer on average, which is about half of what Sprint is earning on its CDMA network and significantly less than Verizon Wireless, which says each customer is paying almost $15 a month on average.
The shortfalls are not lost on T-Mobile’s CEO RenĂ© Obermann, who said he wasn’t satisfied with the performance of the company’s U.S. mobile unit, which historically was the company’s growth driver, reports the WSJ. Obermann: “In dollar terms there was no growth in the second quarter. We intend to change that in the medium term, but the turnaround will not be in the third quarter.”

Comments have been disabled for this post