Earnings Call Transcript
T-Mobile US, Inc. (TMUS)
Earnings Call Transcript - TMUS Q3 2023
Jud Henry, Senior Vice President, Head of Investor Relations
Good morning. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Jud Henry, Senior Vice President and Head of Investor Relations for T-Mobile US. Please go ahead.
Mike Sievert, President and CEO
Okay. Thanks, Jud. Good morning, everyone. If you're tuning in to our webcast, you can see we’re joining you from New York City, and I have several members of my senior leadership team with me. We’re excited to discuss another quarter of strong results. Our strategy to provide the best network, the best value, and the best customer experience has remained consistent. Our Q3 results demonstrate the effectiveness of this strategy with another quarter of industry-leading customer and financial growth. I want to recognize our incredible team nationwide. We have navigated significant changes together to position our company for future success, and it hasn’t always been easy. However, this team has once again exemplified our commitment to customers and how that philosophy translates into success. I know you’ve seen the numbers already, so I’ll skip the detailed recap of the quarterly results and make just a few comments before we move to questions. First, as we announced yesterday, I am incredibly proud of our network team for achieving our ambitious goal of covering 300 million people with dedicated mid-band 5G more than two months ahead of our year-end target. We set this goal nearly three years ago, and we got it done. To this day, no one else in the industry has announced any plans to match it. It may seem confusing with others celebrating their C-band deployments, which could lead some to think our network lead is narrowing, but it is the opposite. In fact, according to Ookla, T-Mobile's nationwide median speeds were double those of the next competitor in September. Our mid-band 5G coverage is also twice that of the nearest competitor, indicating they still have much work to do to catch up with T-Mobile. We have more spectrum dedicated to 5G than anyone else, even before deploying our C-band, 3.45 GHz spectrum, or Auction 108 2.5 GHz licenses, not to mention re-farming our AWS spectrum. We kicked off the 5G era two years ahead of the competition and we continue to stay at least two years ahead. I predict that in two years, we will still be ahead. This translates to a superior customer experience. We’re quickly utilizing our spectrum resources for the benefit of consumers and businesses, and we’re doing it with the highest capital efficiency in the industry. The most exciting part is that many potential customers are just starting to realize that T-Mobile is the overall network leader, leaving significant growth opportunities ahead. We’re also building on our solid reputation for providing the best value. Our latest Un-Carrier move is freeing customers from three-year contracts, and our new Go 5G rate plans offer the most feature-rich options in wireless. The phone freedom initiative has proven to be one of our most impactful Un-Carrier moves, attracting high-quality switchers to T-Mobile, which is reflected in our industry-leading postpaid account growth. We’re also making strides in our ARPA revenue growth strategy, with another strong quarter showing over a 1% increase compared to last year, fueled by Go 5G plus and multiple product offerings. Some have questioned why, if our new higher value rate plans are popular, ARPU isn’t growing faster as well. I'll point out that consumer ARPU is still increasing, even with offsets from growing segments like 55+ and military. Overall consumer growth is being partially offset by profitable expansion in the enterprise sector, which has lower ARPUs but attractive customer lifetime values, contributing positively to our financial growth. We are achieving all of this in a wireless industry that continues to boost service revenues and cash flows, while providing customers with the benefits of healthy competition resulting in increased value and better networks. This industry now generates much higher cash flow and EBITDA than five years ago, while customers enjoy three times the data at four times the speeds but pay only a fraction of the previous costs. This is before considering the expanded device promotions now commonly available. We’re building a vibrant, profitable business that delivers rapidly improving network service and value. This is the win-win 5G dividend that is often overlooked, showcasing why T-Mobile's 5G leadership is so vital. This is certainly evident in T-Mobile for Business, where we’ve achieved our highest ever account net additions and our highest ever postpaid net gains in enterprise, thanks to the strength of our 5G-enabled solutions. Consumers are increasingly choosing T-Mobile above all others. Those seeking prime networks in the top 100 markets are recognizing that T-Mobile offers the best blend of coverage and capacity to meet their needs. For the first time, T-Mobile also outpaced competitors in securing the highest share of switchers in smaller markets and rural areas in Q3. Our broadband service had another strong quarter, now serving over 4.2 million customers who enjoy an excellent experience with net promoter scores over 30 points higher than cable, and demonstrating year-over-year improvement in churn as well. We are on track for our long-term goals with 5G broadband. Overall, our customer growth strategy is unique and sustainable, leading to industry-leading service revenue growth at both the company level and in postpaid service revenue, which has grown by more than 6%, outperforming our peers by over 1.5 times. This top-line leadership, along with our synergy realization and focus on cost efficiencies, resulted in double-digit growth in core adjusted EBITDA with the highest free cash flow conversion in the industry. This enables us to not only raise our guidance for this year but also gives us confidence in the future. With substantial growth opportunities continuing to develop, we are well-positioned for sustained leadership in customer and service revenue growth as we move forward. We recognize opportunities in the rapidly evolving technology landscape across our business, which will drive further revenue growth, margin expansion, and free cash flow growth, allowing us to invest in our customers and network, and potentially provide significant ongoing returns for shareholders. This exceptional, customer-focused team continues to excel with much exciting potential ahead, demonstrating why it's not just a tagline when we say that for customers, employees, and investors, it’s better over here at T-Mobile. Peter, over to you for our key financial highlights and updated guidance.
Peter Osvaldik, CFO
All right. Thanks, Mike. Our ongoing delivery of best-in-class customer and financial growth quarter after quarter enables us to increase our guidance once again. So let's jump into the details. We now expect total postpaid net customer additions to be between 5.7 million and 5.9 million, up 50,000 at the midpoint. This reflects continued progress across all our core growth initiatives, partially offset by the deactivation of lower ARPU postpaid other data devices in the education sector, the largest of which arose during Q3. As you know, our ability to uniquely solve customer pain points led to significant connection growth in the educational sector during the pandemic, supporting the rapid need for remote learning solutions. As things are increasingly returning to normal, we had anticipated many of these connections to roll off in 2023 and do not expect the deactivation of these educational connections to have any material impact on service revenue looking forward. Included in the 5.7 million to 5.9 million is our expectation of approximately 3 million postpaid phone net additions for the full year. Our focus on profitable growth allows us to fund those higher postpaid phone net ads and still increase our core adjusted EBITDA expectation, which we now expect to be between $29 billion and $29.2 billion. This is up over 10% year-over-year at the midpoint, fueled by higher service revenues and synergies, and excludes leasing revenues of approximately $300 million as we transition substantially all remaining customers off device leasing by year-end. Our merger synergies are expected to be approximately $7.5 billion in 2023, achieving the full run rate synergy target provided at our Analyst Day a year ahead of schedule as we build towards the full run rate synergies of $8 billion in 2024. Now with the merger integration now substantially behind us, we will discontinue reporting synergies separately from overall business results going forward. We continue to expect merger-related costs, which are not included in adjusted or core adjusted EBITDA, to be approximately $1 billion before taxes. And we now expect cash merger-related costs of $1.7 billion to $1.9 billion for 2023 as they have under run the P&L recognition to date. Net cash provided by operating activities, which include payments for merger related costs, are now expected to be in the range of $18.3 billion to $18.5 billion. We now expect cash CapEx to be between $9.6 billion and $9.8 billion, delivering our network milestones ahead of schedule at a capital efficiency unmatched in our industry. The higher operating cash flows not only fund the increased CapEx, but also allow for a slight increase to free cash flow, now expected to be between $13.4 billion to $13.6 billion, which includes payments for merger-related costs. Not only is this up approximately 75% over last year, thanks to our margin expansion and capital efficiency, but also represents a free cash flow to service revenue margin, which is multiple percentage points higher than peers with further expansion expected next year. Consistent with the entire year, the updated free cash flow guidance does not assume any material net cash inflows from securitization. Turning to income taxes, we continue to expect our full-year effective tax rate to be between 24% and 26%. And finally, we continue to expect full-year postpaid ARPA to increase slightly more than 1% as we continue to expand our account relationships as part of our land and expand account strategy to grow service revenue. In closing, our differentiated and profitable growth strategy continues to deliver industry-leading growth and service revenue, core adjusted EBITDA, and free cash flow along with the highest free cash flow conversion in the industry to unlock shareholder value. And with that, I'll now turn the call back to Jud to begin the Q&A.
Jud Henry, Senior Vice President, Head of Investor Relations
All right, let's get to your questions. You can ask a question via phone by pressing one followed by four or via social media by sending a tweet to @T-MobileIR or at Mike Sievert using #TMUS. We'll start with a question on the phone. Operator, first question please.
Operator, Operator
Thank you. Our first question is from the line of John Hodulik with UBS. Please go ahead.
John Hodulik, Analyst
Great. Thanks. Two questions if I can. First of all, the comments on the rapid share gains in the rural markets were sort of new this quarter. Mike, anything you could tell us about sort of where you are and sort of how much room you have to go to penetrate these markets. And then secondly, maybe for Peter, there was a comment in the 10-Q about the workforce reduction and the fact that it would drive OpEx down on a year-over-year basis in 2024. I guess two parts there. One, are there any way you could quantify the OpEx reduction and are there other factors involved that are potentially allowing you to see that OpEx reduction on a year-over-year basis? Thanks.
Mike Sievert, President and CEO
Okay, John. Let's start with Jon Freier who maybe can give a little color on what we're seeing in smaller markets and rural areas. As you heard in my prepared remarks, this is a huge milestone because T-Mobile achieved leadership in share of switchers for the first time ever across the entirety of what we call smaller markets and rural areas, which is about 40% of the country.
Jon Freier, Executive Vice President, Consumer Markets
Yes, you bet, Mike. So yes, just to pick it up on that, 40% of the country, everything outside of the top 100 markets is how we define smaller markets and rural areas. It's about 140 million people, 50 million households, and again, 40% of the market. And we just could not be more delighted. I've been talking to you about this for a couple of years now relative to our ambitions in smaller markets and rural areas and bringing real 5G. When you think about a lot of the places that we're playing, we're bringing the only 5G network into town. And given the announcement that we just made a couple of days ago around 5G Ultra Capacity now bringing that to 300 million people across the entire country. So it's a huge opportunity when we bring the network, we're bringing the distribution, we're bringing our marketing and our special sauce relative to our value proposition and more choice to smaller markets and rural areas. It's been fantastic. It's a huge milestone for us to be across all these markets now the leader of share of port ends. We're not playing in all the markets, just as a reminder. It's about 70% of the markets that we're playing in. We're not even playing across all the markets. And even with that, now we're the share taker in terms of switchers.
Mike Sievert, President and CEO
Peter, any comments on OpEx for 2024? Why don't you just go ahead and roll out the guidance for 2020?
Peter Osvaldik, CFO
Yes, exactly. So I got up too early to roll out 2024 guidance, that's for sure. But in your question of workforce transformation. Look, I think Mike touched upon it at the beginning, and you saw us comment around this before. This is really about a tough set of actions, but as we got through the balance of the integration, we had to make some changes. That's what this team does. It looks around corners and it says, we need to make sure we create clarity in the operating of this organization, bring that entrepreneurial spirit back and make sure that we're looking at what are the headwinds and what are the tailwinds. As we think about what we laid out at Analyst Day, which seems like so long ago with respect to 2024 and what we were going to do there. A lot in the world has changed, but it's a set of all of these tailwinds and actions that we've created that still gives us confidence that we think, certainly from a core EBITDA perspective, again, I'm not going to roll out all the 2024 guidance, but we're going to come right in there in the middle of the range. And these are the kind of actions that are necessary to create that opportunity and keep bringing the ability to invest in customers and the network and the business as we are.
Mike Sievert, President and CEO
I was kind of kidding, but you did roll out the guidance. Okay. That's pretty good. It is remarkable that we did this Analyst Day years ago, I think, early in 2021 and laid out several years of expectations. And as we sit here today, knocking on 2024, we're able to outlook a year that looks just like we had anticipated, right down the middle. And that's something that I'm particularly proud of, given that it's not at all like we thought. I mean, it's really different than we thought. And yet we make course corrections as we go to keep the promises that we made to you front and center, a vibrant growing business, developing EBITDA and cash flow, and doing breakthrough things for customers and businesses. And that's what's happening. So we couldn't be more excited about next year.
Operator, Operator
Our next question is from the line of Simon Flannery with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Simon Flannery, Analyst
Great. Thank you very much. Good morning. Mike, you talked about some of the additional growth opportunities and perhaps you just revisit the fixed wireless program and how that's going, how you're thinking about that? There's been a lot of speculation about different assets. I think you've talked in the past about asset light. And then related to that, fixed wireless expansion and analyzing millimeter wave, overlay solutions and other ways to add capacity, any updates on that. It sounds like you've still got C-band and 3.45 to bring to bear on that. But any color there would be great.
Mike Sievert, President and CEO
Yes. Thanks, Simon. Well, nothing's changed in terms of our philosophy and approach as it relates to broadband. And just to take you back, what we had said still holds, which is, we are conducting all kinds of experiments in the space, including observing our national performance in 5G home broadband, which, if anything, that performance and the resonance of our brand and our team's ability to execute in the space, along with the trials that we're doing in fiber, only bolster our confidence that our brand and our team belong in this market. But nothing has changed in terms of our philosophy. We like this business model, and to the extent we make investments or partnerships in the area, our view is, it should be capital light, generally off balance sheet, et cetera. Speculation, I know is out there. I can't clarify we're not the partner to JANA in the transaction that was rumored a couple of weeks ago. Although we remain interested in partnerships like the kinds we have rolled out pilots around and other constructs that are generally capital light, generally off balance sheet. And that's for a reason. We're performing really well and demonstrating through our tests as well as our broad scale performance in 5G home broadband that our brand and our team belong in this space and we can create value. As it relates to new ways to do wireless broadband, you said it at the very end there, and I mentioned in my remarks, Ulf and team, now that they've reached 300 million people with mid-band Ultra Capacity 5G are now setting about the task of deploying all of our spectrum resources to that base. And we're only just beginning. We have the bulk of our 2.5 GHz now rolling out. But our target is to be at 200 megahertz around the end of this year deployed against the 300 million people. And then more room to run next year, because as I said, we have Auction 108 proceeds still pending, we have C-band that we haven't deployed, 3.45, as well as refarming potential from spectrum being used for LTE right now, like AWS. And so lots of room to run as it relates to pouring new capacity into this network. And that means, we right now at a broad scale are not looking at alternatives to that from a wireless standpoint. We use millimeter wave pretty strategically in very dense places and so far that's a great use for it. I will say, as we said last time, so no change, that we remain open minded to whether there are techniques that would allow us to deploy capital specifically for 5G broadband and make a great return for you. But so far, we haven't drawn any conclusions that that's a scalable opportunity for us.
Simon Flannery, Analyst
Thanks Mike.
Operator, Operator
Our next question is from the line of Phil Cusick with JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Phil Cusick, Analyst
Two if I can. One, Peter can you talk about potential savings from the layoffs in August and will those hit the fourth quarter or should we think of that all next year? And then maybe one for Callie. Can you talk about the contribution of business to subscriber growth numbers and what's the typical ARPU of your business phone lines? Thank you.
Mike Sievert, President and CEO
Okay, let's start with Callie on business. And then we'll come back to another crack at OpEx. So what's going on in business, Callie?
Callie Field, Executive Vice President, Customer Experience
Well, thanks Phil for the question. And I'll tell you, as a result of our network leadership and the solutions that are built for today's unique challenges of a CIO, we continue to deliver highly profitable growth. One of our highest postpaid phone net ads and lowest phone churn quarters in history and delivered results once again that outperformed our benchmark competitor. This quarter also we delivered our highest enterprise postpaid net ads ever. So we're seeing growth in all segments, in small business and in enterprise. As for the macro environment, while there's probably a portion that are price sensitive. We know from years of experience that price alone doesn't determine a win with enterprise and government who are uncompromising when it comes to network performance and complete solutions. Solutions like we recently deployed at Boston Children's Hospital, which is the healthcare industry's first-ever hybrid 5G network solution for over 18 buildings which is supporting critical applications not only reliable connectivity, but also with security and MDM solutions for doctors to provide telehealth services to their patients. So let me pause there and Mike, see if there's anything else.
Mike Sievert, President and CEO
Yeah, and specifically on ARPU, we said in our prepared remarks, it's somewhat lower than consumer, but highly accretive from a CLV and value creation standpoint. So these are great customers. We are finding, as Callie said, that enterprises are not picking us because we're the lowest price, although we compete ambitiously on price. They're picking us because of the solutions that Callie's team has brought to the market. And that's very helpful from a value creation standpoint for us. So we continually look at the customer lifetime value, net of all the costs to serve these customers, and find that enterprise customers are highly attractive, and therefore contributing to our financial results. And that's why Peter always warns you, ARPU is a mix-driven metric. And we're not solving for it, we're solving for value creation and return on our effort and investment and enterprise is a great place to put our effort and investment.
Peter Osvaldik, CFO
And then Phil with regards to the OpEx. So again, the actions that we took really ways for us to create tailwinds and further fuel the growth of the company. And so I'm not giving specific line item, OpEx guides, all of those actions were then contemplated in the updated guide for 2023 that we gave, and again, kind of the teaser we just gave about 2024 and core EBITDA there.
Phil Cusick, Analyst
Thanks, guys.
Operator, Operator
All right. Next question. Our next question is from the line of Craig Moffett with MoffettNathanson. Please go ahead.
Craig Moffett, Analyst
Hi, thank you. You recently increased prices for legacy plans, which received some negative media attention. We’ve heard there might be a reconsideration of that increase. Can you discuss the response you’ve received and your views on industry pricing trends moving forward and the potential to raise your ARPU?
Mike Sievert, President and CEO
Yes, Craig. To clarify, the information reported wasn't entirely accurate. As you know, since you follow us closely, we often conduct tests and pilots to determine the best approach. Recently, we had a test cell aimed at gauging customer interest in transitioning from older rate plans to more valuable ones for both customers and us. We had training planned for this, but then it leaked, creating the impression that it was a nationwide initiative when it was not. Given the feedback we received from this leak, we realized that the particular test cell might not resonate with our customers. None of those plans have been implemented. Although we initially planned to roll it out, we decided against it based on the feedback. Michael can elaborate on our pricing philosophy, customer insights, and our observations regarding Go 5G Plus and Next.
Michael Katz, SVP, Marketing
Yes. Maybe I can start with that. Go 5G Plus and Next have been, like we've talked about the last couple of cycles, incredible successes for us. And it really starts with the fact that these are hands down the best value in this industry. If you look at all the features that come with those plans, there's hundreds of dollars of value for customers on a monthly basis with the streaming benefits and the in-flight Wi-Fi and roaming benefits are on those plans. But in a time when the market and customers are so focused on device value, there is not a plan in the industry that gives customers more flexibility and more value on device than the Go 5G plans do. And you really saw that in this last iPhone cycle where we really differentiated with the flexibility on upgrade. When the rest of the market is at three years, we had offers for customers that allowed them to upgrade as frequently as one year. Those plans really create the platform for our core pricing strategy, which is, how can we give customers more and more value and allow them to move up our price card because they feel like they're getting something additional from us. So that is the foundation of our core pricing value. As Mike said, we conduct tests and pilots all the time, all the time, and we will continue to do so because we still think there's opportunities both to deliver more value for customers in a bunch of different ways, but also look for opportunities to simplify our overall portfolio. So I would expect to see more of those kinds of tests from us, because it's been a consistent practice throughout the entire un-carrier journey so that we get it right for the experience for our customers.
Mike Sievert, President and CEO
Yes. Although that particular test cell doesn't need to be executed now we remain very interested in rationalizing our legacy rate plans for IT purposes, simplification purposes, revenue realization purposes, customer satisfaction and retention purposes. So we're going to stay at it, but that particular idea will probably do something different.
Craig Moffett, Analyst
Can you just comment on just the industry pricing environment overall and what your sense is about the competitive intensity on the rate plan side?
Mike Sievert, President and CEO
Yes, absolutely. In fact, I'll give a broader picture, rate plan and device promotions, which have become a big part of the competitive landscape over the last couple of years. It's intense. It's really competitive. And it's pretty consistent too. I mean, I think it's been consistently competitive all year. And you saw we delivered an incredible Q2 and Q3 in that context. Some of the best performance in our history, the lowest churn ever for a Q2 and for a Q3 in our history. We continue to lead in postpaid net additions and delivered EBITDA performance and outlooks on EBITDA that show that we're monetizing that growth as well. So we're really comfortable in this competitive dynamic and it's stable and consistent. So that's what's going on out there. It's intense. We like it that way. And, I would say, we're entering typically very intense seasonal periods around the holidays, and I expect it to be a slog out there just like it is every year.
Craig Moffett, Analyst
Thank you.
Jud Henry, Senior Vice President, Head of Investor Relations
All right. Next question.
Operator, Operator
Our next question is from the line of Brett Feldman with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Brett Feldman, Analyst
Thanks for taking the question. During your prepared remarks, I think you mentioned that your fixed wireless churn has come down. I was hoping you can maybe give us a little bit of insight into what's driving that? Maybe broadly speaking, what you've learned about what creates churn and what causes greater levels of retention across that base? And do you think you're getting to a point where churn is getting into a mature run rate or is there still opportunity to keep driving that lower? Thank you.
Mike Sievert, President and CEO
Yes, I'd love to take credit for that. I think a lot of it's just the math of the aging of our base. So this product was great when we launched it. And that's because we had made sure it would be great before we took it national. And so, it's generally been pretty consistent. One of the ways you can look at that is the net promoter scores, which have been pretty consistent.
Michael Katz, SVP, Marketing
Yeah, in fact, leading the industry of all kinds of different kinds of broadband products. Yes, I think there's two things. One is the one that Mike just said. And we've talked about this previously, that when you have a new broadband business, one that literally has doubled in size year-over-year, that we have many more customers that are brand new customers that churn at a higher rate. That's just the way that the churn curve works on products like these, including wireless. Early customers churn at a higher rate. And as customers mature and our base matures, we expected to see a decrease in churn, which we, in fact, have seen. Additionally, across all of our 10-year cohorts, we've also seen churn come down. And a lot of that is because as we get more mature in our execution and as we get more feedback and data from customers about their performance, we've been able to tune our execution. We've been able to do things and address things like common things that cause confusion for customers either with install or with peripheral devices being attached to their CPEs. We've created better tools to be able to troubleshoot for customers. And those things have had an impact on churn. And I do expect as we learn more, we'll get better there as well. So, our goal with all of our businesses is always to be the best in churn, and that's no different for us than in the HSI business.
Brett Feldman, Analyst
Thank you.
Jud Henry, Senior Vice President, Head of Investor Relations
All right. Next question, please.
Operator, Operator
Our next question is from the line of Jonathan Chaplin with New Street Research. Please go ahead.
Jonathan Chaplin, Analyst
Thanks. So Mike, when you talk about why your business is so great, it always starts with the discussion of the fact that you have the best network and it's built on this incredible spectrum portfolio that's unmatched across the industry. Is there something about the broadband business that means you don't have to own and control the underlying asset in order to have the same kind of defensible position in broadband, and I'm thinking specifically of fiber here as opposed to fixed wireless access?
Mike Sievert, President and CEO
That's a great question. In the wireless sector, competitive intensity is national, and brand trust regarding intangible values like network quality is extremely important. We've diligently cultivated that brand trust over many years, which we believe is somewhat transferable. Customers have faith in our brand and see us as advocates for their interests, often feeling that we change the rules to benefit them. In wireless, the significance of network quality is such that one can't simply buy three phones and travel across the country to gauge performance. Although there are services that offer such comparisons and advertise based on their findings, many people remain skeptical of those claims. Ultimately, it relies on their personal experiences and the connection they have with the brand they choose. Our research indicates that this brand trust is highly transferable to related areas, which makes us excited about the opportunities in those spaces. We find that our brand resonates well there, but we have no intention of altering our capital structure. That's why we've approached the topic of fiber in the way we have.
Jonathan Chaplin, Analyst
A quick follow-up, Mike. Can you just update us on how many homes you're addressing with fixed wireless access and how that's changed over the course of the quarter?
Mike Sievert, President and CEO
Yes. And I'll address it, but I will remind you, it's a bit of a different metric than homes passed in the broadband and fiber space. We generally talk about marketing to about 50 million homes right now. But it's a dynamic number and it changes based on penetration of given neighborhoods. And so what happens, I'll remind you, is that on every sector of every tower, we have an assessment of capacity, not just now, but out into the future, assuming ongoing wireless smartphone share taking and ongoing rapid increase in wireless consumption per smartphone. Once we plot all of that out, there are sectors of towers where no normal amount of share taking or wireless smartphone consumption will use up our capacity anytime soon. And in those places, and only those places are we approving applicants for our home broadband service. And what that means is, we're essentially monetizing and selling excess capacity through this initial 5G broadband strategy. And so those are the homes passed. Now, if three people in your neighborhood sign up, or four or five people, it depends on the sector, the whole neighborhood comes off our list until such time as we've got that excess capacity again. Now, as I mentioned earlier, Ulf is rapidly rolling out new capacity enhancements, and we're only part way into it. I think as we wrapped up the quarter, we had what, Ulf, about 155 megahertz deployed against our Ultra Capacity?
Ulf Ewaldsson, Chief Technology Officer
That's correct. Currently, 70% of the payload on the network is 5G. As we observe an increase in 5G traffic, we're able to transition frequencies used for LTE into 5G. Additionally, we possess a significant spectrum asset in the mid-band, which supports our home Internet products and can be leveraged further. We have more mid-band spectrum potential than any other provider. By the end of the year, we expect to have nearly 200 megahertz dedicated to 5G products.
Mike Sievert, President and CEO
So that gives you a sense of how rapidly this is changing in terms of how we're deploying capacity. It sits in the high 150s now. It's on its way to 200 around the end of the year against Ultra Capacity 5G. And that's before broad deployments of C-band, 3.45, most of the Auction 108 proceeds, which we don't have yet, and ongoing refarming from LTE. So lots of room to run.
Jonathan Chaplin, Analyst
So Mike, that 50 million is about the same as it was last quarter. So the acceleration in net adds must have come either from gaining share of decisions within the 50 million or from the reduction of churn that you mentioned earlier.
Mike Sievert, President and CEO
Yes. And net adds have been relatively consistent. I mean, I know it was in the high 500s this time. Every quarter will be a little different. But I would say net adds have been pretty consistent.
Jud Henry, Senior Vice President, Head of Investor Relations
Okay. Well, let's start with Jon and maybe talk about what we're seeing out there in the consumer space with upgrades and what's driving that.
Jon Freier, Executive Vice President, Consumer Markets
Yes, you bet. So like we said in Q3, we had a great overall quarter when you look at what's happening with the iPhone. First of all, this iPhone 15 is a fantastic device. And it drove a lot of switching in the marketplace as you saw relative to our results. And not just iPhone 15 on a differentiated 5G network that I talked about just a few moments ago, but a different iPhone 15 because of some capabilities that really work on our network versus others. When you think about 4-carrier aggregation, when you think about voice over new radio, 20% download speeds that are faster versus an iPhone that doesn't have that. That's all great. Customers love it, et cetera. And it drove a lot of switching activity. Now relative to our existing customer base, what you're finding is you're finding us landing upgrade offers with people who need it, and not necessarily with people who don't need it. Because remember, our overall base is about 70% with the 5G handset that's out there today. And when you think about customers that are having a great lived experience today on an incredible 5G network, they look at upgrades as an opportunity to say, am I really going to improve my experience? For a lot of customers, that's not really happening relative to the network that they have out there and relative to our overall positioning with our 5G devices. Remember, we had a lot of upgrades back in 2021 and 2022 in the Sprint base. We got a lot of that upgrade base happening at that time. So like we said, when you look at the overall iPhone 15 launch, I feel fantastic about that. When you look at upgrades, it's a little lower. You've seen the upgrade rate at 2.7%. It's a little lower. But also with against the backdrop of the lowest Q2 churn we've ever had followed up with the lowest Q3 postpaid phone churn that we've ever had and I like how those dynamics are playing out.
Peter Osvaldik, CFO
Yes, and I would just add, Bill, to that question. I think I had expect the same dynamic to play out in Q4. That same meeting consumer demand exactly as it is. That same dynamic of because of the 5G device penetration and how the lived experience on those network actually exists for those customers. I feel equipment revenue, which as you know, isn't the value-creating element of the company, that's service revenue, that will continue to have industry-leading growth. On the equipment revenue side, I'd expect it to be in the same kind of low $3 billion range for Q4 as a result of that dynamic.
Mike Sievert, President and CEO
It's been a nice tailwind for us to see these upgrade rates so low and yet our churn so low at the same time. And it really speaks to the everyday experience that T-Mobile customers are having on the most advanced 5G network. And they just don't feel as compelled to take action because they have a 5G device, and it's working remarkably well. And that trend could continue because, as Jon said it kind of fast, but the newest iPhones take advantage of four-way carrier aggregation on T-Mobile because our network is so far ahead with standalone 5G and core 5G capabilities that are much more advanced. Now the devices are starting to take advantage of those things, which means they're very future-proofed. And so, it's great to be at T-Mobile because these advanced phone features take advantage of advanced network features and may mean that you don't need a new one again as quickly as you might otherwise. For some people, that's what they want. They just want a new one every year. I'm one of those people and T-Mobile reaches that audience as well with our breakthrough plans like Go 5G, Next. So we feel like we're speaking to the right audiences with the right offers here.
Jud Henry, Senior Vice President, Head of Investor Relations
Okay. Great. Operator, let's go back to the phones.
Operator, Operator
Certainly. Our next question is from the line of David Barden with Bank of America. Please go ahead.
David Barden, Analyst
Hey, guys. Thank you so much for taking the questions. I guess, two threads, if I could. Mike, I just wanted to follow up on your comments. I mean, in the past, you've historically said that the higher switching environments were environments where T-Mobile thrive, because you were bringing your value proposition to the market more frequently. But now that upgrade rates and churn is falling across all the telco players, does this mean that you're getting just supernormal switcher share from the telcos? Or is some of this now coming to you from cable as that base kind of ages in their experience in the cable industry and the promotions come off? And then I guess the second question if I could here, you kind of talked about how these headcount reductions in the summer were part of some of this larger plan for transformation of the business. Is there more to come on the transformation and maybe for lack of a better word, synergy realization as we look into the 2024-2025 period? Or are we there now? Thanks.
Mike Sievert, President and CEO
Yes. Thanks, David. Well, let me comment first on the competitive dynamic. You're right. I mean, we love a dynamic where there are more jump balls, more people who are category and tenders. And let me clarify, though, that devices and upgrade rates are only one input to that. So devices can be a great catalyst for switching carriers, but they're by far not the only one. And so, our job through our offers is to create those moments where people stop and say, hey, maybe I'd be better off. Maybe it's better over there at T-Mobile. And that's something we've consistently done in our Un-carrier moves have always been a technique we've used. This latest one this year, Phone Freedom and all the related offers around it is really resonating with people. We looked into it and found that AT&T, for example, was experiencing really low churn and yet high intentions to switch by their base, and that told us that people felt trapped. And so, we released an offer that was about untrapping them. And that's been the kind of thing the Un-carrier has always done. So we're out there competing ambitiously and it's working as you can see in our industry-leading postpaid phone net additions and other metrics. We are also seeing, mostly due to the aging of the base, as you said, that switching relative to cable has been improving quarter-over-quarter for several quarters in a row. That's good to see. There's no real new dynamic there with cable. They've been pretty consistent since about a year ago, and we expect that to continue. And you can see how well we're competing in a dynamic where cable is out there doing what they do relatively consistently. And then finally, you were asking about transformation and what's going on there and what we see. Do we have room to run? In many ways, we're really just getting started.
Peter Osvaldik, CFO
Yes. And you kind of asked it in the context of workforce transformation. There's no broad plans to do any more of that in 2024. But on transformation and efficiency, absolutely and how we'll grow core EBITDA and continue to expand that. Two elements there. One, as you know, we made significant investments in the last couple of years, whether it's in network and the pull forward that we did there, that now we're able to leverage. Similarly, in smaller markets and rural areas where you had distribution expansion that investment is things that you can now leverage. And beyond that, of course, I mean, that's one thing this team does phenomenally well is looking at how do you harness the latest technologies? How are you really looking around corners to create the efficiencies so that we can have that reinvestment into customer acquisition and profitability? So there's more of that on the runway ahead of us for sure.
Mike Sievert, President and CEO
Yes. I'll add one more point. Clearly, we are not the only company noticing the rapidly changing technology landscape around us. This presents an opportunity for us in our post-integration era as we explore the next chapter and consider reshaping our company. We want to leverage the new technologies available to become more data-informed, AI-enabled, and digital-first. A significant amount of our team's time and focus is currently on reimagining how we can develop a business model that delivers an exceptional experience for each customer while also being more efficient in operations. This is where we have our ambitions.
Jud Henry, Senior Vice President, Head of Investor Relations
Thank you, Mike.
Operator, Operator
Certainly. Our next question is from the line of Kannan Venkateshwar with Barclays. Please go ahead.
Kannan Venkateshwar, Analyst
Thank you. Mike, I wanted to ask you to elaborate on capital allocation and your outlook for the broadband business in the coming years. You are likely to be the third or fourth largest provider in broadband, which may require either increased capacity spectrum or an opportunity to transition to fiber. Additionally, there may be chances to expand. As we consider this over the next few quarters and even further into the future, could you share your thoughts on how you assess these long-term opportunities in relation to both fiber and asset growth? Thank you.
Mike Sievert, President and CEO
Thank you. I'm sorry that your line is garbled, so I'll paraphrase what I think you're asking since we couldn't hear you clearly. It seems you're inquiring about our long-term strategy in the broadband market. I've discussed our wireless approach for the upcoming year and our immediate focus on fiber, but you're asking about the broader perspective, particularly considering the limited capacity in wireless. We haven't made any decisions regarding that yet. We're exploring techniques that might efficiently extend wireless capacity and competitiveness for the future, and we're still working on finding those solutions. Our team is focused on executing our current strategy with mid-band spectrum and aiming for the high single-digit target we've mentioned, which is progressing well. Additionally, we're invested in fiber as a long-term technology that will serve households and businesses for years to come. We're gaining confidence in our ability and brand within the broadband space. However, we don't plan to alter our company's capital structure or philosophy, nor our wireless-centric approach. We're looking for opportunities to learn and expand our presence in fiber through partnerships and capital-light investments without necessarily scaling up to larger projects immediately. Over the next couple of years, we'll focus on improving our execution and returns before reassessing our position. Our priority is ensuring that our efforts yield great returns for our shareholders, and we're entering a phase in wireless where we're beginning to see the rewards of a disciplined strategy that balances growth and profitability, positioning us well for substantial shareholder returns.
Kannan Venkateshwar, Analyst
Thank you, Mike.
Mike Sievert, President and CEO
You bet. And I'm sorry, we couldn't hear your question as well. I hope I got close.
Jud Henry, Senior Vice President, Head of Investor Relations
Operator, next question, please.
Operator, Operator
Our next question is from the line of Michael Rollins with Citigroup. Please go ahead.
Michael Rollins, Analyst
Thanks and good morning. First on the capital investment side. Can you discuss a little bit more over the course of the year, what were the activities that drove the incremental investment? And maybe you can give us an early read on how 2024 looks from an investment perspective and how those spending activity may be similar or different to the current year? And then just one other quick question. In the past, you discussed the mix of postpaid phones to overall postpaid net adds, I think being around 50% for 2023. But in the third quarter, that percentage ticked up because of the educational sector deactivations. So just curious if you can give us an update on how you're thinking about the mix of postpaid phones within the total postpaid net add guidance? Thanks.
Mike Sievert, President and CEO
Okay. Let's start with the easy one at the end because I think you gave some specific numbers there, Peter. But then if you don't mind, why don't you talk about our capital philosophy for next year, and then I'll hand it to Ulf to talk about how he's going to spend all that money.
Peter Osvaldik, CFO
Yes, you're right, Mike. Q3 was a unique situation, which is why we provided more specific guidance on the subset of the overall that will be postpaid phone, approximately $3 million total for the year. This is due to Q3 being the period when we expected more educational deactivations, and those came through. So, I wouldn't interpret Q3's mix of phone to others without considering the $3 million overall for the year. As we move into 2024 guidance, I’ll hand it over to Ulf to discuss the investments made and the focus on customer-driven coverage. We have seen substantial benefits from our data-informed strategy aimed at maximizing ROI and enhancing customer experience. This is reflected in our achievement of 300 million POPs delivered while maintaining our position as the most capital-efficient company in the industry. Looking ahead to 2024, we believe this approach will drive capital investment, especially concerning the network. We previously provided a range of 9 to 10 for 2024 and I anticipate we might end up on the lower end of that. We'll see how things develop, but that's our preliminary outlook for 2024.
Mike Sievert, President and CEO
Yes. And I want to hand it to Ulf and team and Neville before him. We have really built, thanks to your leadership, a really different approach on how to deploy capital. And it is lean, it's efficient, it's planful. And we're realizing real benefits from that right now. And we can see it in all of our diagnostics, how we're getting more for less. And so, I'm just really, really proud of that. And maybe we can talk about what the priorities are for 2024. And as a part of that, we can also hit tech life channel at Tech Life 32, congrats on the 300 million. What's the progress on the new site builds 10-K we had talked about in the merger plan. Will that complete this year? Or will that run into 2024? And tell us about the capital priorities for the network next year.
Ulf Ewaldsson, Chief Technology Officer
Thank you, Mike. I am thrilled that we completed the 300 million POP coverage well ahead of schedule. As you mentioned, this success is largely due to our approach, which sets us apart from other operators globally. Our lean, just-in-time process emphasizes lead times and timely upgrades where they are needed. This efficiency will continue to be refined, incorporating AI and data insights to identify the most advantageous investments as we enhance our network. We still have significant opportunities ahead, especially in utilizing our mid-band frequencies that enhance the Ultra Capacity experience on our devices. Additionally, we still have C-band and 3.45 GHz spectrum to deploy, which will require capital next year, and we're planning for that. We also have more LTE spectrum and a recently announced lease with Comcast that we are utilizing effectively without needing additional capital because we've designed our network for straightforward upgrades. Overall, it has been a productive year, keeping us competitive and maintaining our advantage in 5G with capital efficiency.
Mike Sievert, President and CEO
That's fantastic. And I know every company is being asked, how are you taking advantage of emerging AI technologies and it's really exciting that this is one of the areas where our business can benefit because the team has already begun making capital deployment decisions, as Ulf just said, based on an AI analysis of network usage and how it correlates to individual churn and satisfaction patterns at a person-by-person level. It's very exciting stuff. And that, and many other things, including the breadth of our portfolio, lead to a capital efficiency profile. So we'll see. I know Peter teased you, we don't know. It's not time to guide on next year yet. But our hope is that because of that capital efficiency and what we're now seeing, we may be able to accomplish everything we set out to accomplish next year at the lower end of that capital range. So we'll see and we'll give you an updated view as we get into next year.
Michael Rollins, Analyst
Thanks.
Jud Henry, Senior Vice President, Head of Investor Relations
All right. Yes, lots of congratulatory on social on 300 million. So great job, Ulf. All right, operator, let's take our last question from the phone.
Operator, Operator
Our next question is from the line of Greg Williams with TD Cowen. Please go ahead.
Greg Williams, Analyst
Great. Thanks for squeezing me in. I know the industry has asked this question for quite some time, but you just had 850,000 phone adds. You're the third solid phone growth. Cable's going to announce their numbers in the next 48 hours. But just getting your latest thoughts on where these additional phones are coming from and how you see industries for growth playing out in 2024? Second question is just on private networks. One of your competitors spoke yesterday saying that perhaps private networks could move the needle in 2025. We've been down this road before. But you talked constructively on advancing 5G in the past and curious this year you're seeing similar views on 2025 for private network. Thanks.
Mike Sievert, President and CEO
I mean, well, first of all, let's start there. I mean, for some competitors, with standalone 5G capabilities, private networks are here now. We're just not managing it through press release and vaporware. We're just quietly serving customers. Maybe, I don't know if you want to talk about any of those, Callie, that we're doing. There's a lot of exciting examples nationwide. Customers who are benefiting from this today at T-Mobile, and then we'll get to your second question.
Callie Field, Executive Vice President, Customer Experience
I mentioned this earlier, Mike. When we consider the challenges faced by CIOs today, they are seeking ways to optimize a campus like Boston Children's Hospital. This involves managing millions of WiFi connections while ensuring that we meet the data and connectivity requirements of their operations. We have a real-time example in the healthcare sector and several others in development that provide doctors, nurses, and patients with reliable connectivity, as well as security and mobile device management solutions. Additionally, we are excited about our first commercial offering of a network slice that will enhance security and control for our customers, combined with T-Sim Secure, which simplifies the experience for IT administrators. We can integrate these solutions with hybrid 5G network setups, using both private sections of the campus and our extensive public network. These are actual deployments that significantly enhance our connectivity offerings and effectively address the needs of CIOs. They are not just looking to save a few dollars on phone connections; they are focused on comprehensive solutions for data and connectivity, which is where our 5G standalone core comes into play.
Mike Sievert, President and CEO
I mean, it's well timed because CIOs are interested in secure connections more than ever before, and they're interested in saving money, not necessarily on a per smartphone subscription, but broadly in their system of connectivity and our solutions do that. And so it's great to see and obviously an all-time record quarter for enterprise for us. And then you asked about the overall postpaid phone growth rate. And yes, it's turned out to be more resilient than a lot of people predicted. We didn't predict. We told you when you asked us last year that we weren't going to predict the whole category. But overall, postpaid phone growth continues to roll on, although at slightly more modest rates. And there's lots of things driving that. You see enterprises carrying two lines, sometimes on the same phone, sometimes on separate phones. You see postpaid growing at the expense of prepaid. That trend continues, although T-Mobile continues to grow our prepaid base across all types of connections. So we continue to lead in that space. All the donations are coming from someplace else. And then what I called in the past kind of low-calorie net adds that you see principally at some of our competitors, including newer competitors. And thank you for giving me the opportunity to go ahead and pre-announce cable's results for them as I usually do. No, I'm kidding. We do have telemetry that tries to show us all quarter long what's happening with our competitors and I think it's a remarkably consistent trend. So you see intense competition out there, probably not a lot of big surprises. And you saw us perform yet again with a market-leading, very high-quality, mostly prime 850,000 postpaid phone net additions in a quarter where we experienced an all-time record Q3 churn. So just really proud of how we're competing in an ongoing competitive dynamic.
Jud Henry, Senior Vice President, Head of Investor Relations
All right. That's a good place to wrap up. All right. Thanks, everybody, for joining us. Really appreciate all your support. And if you have any further questions, please feel free to reach out to both the Investor Relations or the media relations department. Again, thanks again for joining us today.
Operator, Operator
This concludes the T-Mobile Third Quarter Earnings Call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect, and have a pleasant day.