T-Mobile loses subscribers, smartphones flat

The long slide of T-Mobile USA continued in the latest quarter, as the country's No. 4 cellphone company lost subscribers and struggled to sign people up for smartphones.

The company, a subsidiary of Germany's Deutsche Telekom AG, said on Thursday that it lost a net 205,000 subscribers in the second quarter, a record for the period.

Among phone subscribers under contract, it lost 557,000 subscribers, also the highest number of the second quarter. Phone subscribers on contract-based plans pay the most, and are the bread and butter of large wireless carriers.

T-Mobile's revenue from monthly fees on contract service fell 9 percent from a year ago. The larger wireless carriers - Verizon, AT&T and Sprint - all managed to increase this number in the second quarter.

While other big carriers rely on boosting smartphone use to raise monthly fees, the number of smartphone users at T-Mobile USA was flat from the first quarter, at 11.6 million.

Thanks to job cuts, T-Mobile continued to be profitable, with a second-quarter net income of $207 million, nearly flat compared with $212 million a year ago.

Overall revenue fell 3 percent from a year ago to $4.9 billion.

The strong dollar helped T-Mobile's results boost those of its German parent, which reports results in euros.

Last year, T-Mobile agreed to be bought by AT&T Inc., but the deal was blocked by U.S. regulators. During the quarter, CEO Philipp Humm resigned, and was replaced by Jim Alling on an interim basis.

By PETER SVENSSON AP Technology Writer

By PETER SVENSSON
AP Technology Writer