MetroPCS appears to be in a good place. While their closest rival, Cricket, lost over 100,00 subscribers in the second quarter, Metro finished well in the positives. The exact number: 303,000. That’s a large gain from their second quarter 2009 additions, signaling further health for the nation’s No. 5 wireless carrier. They did this not only by bringing in new customers, but also by retaining their current ones. Churn was at 5.8 percent in the second quarter of 2009, but this year it fell all the way to 3.3 percent, remarkably low for a prepaid carrier. This makes the timing of Leap’s announcement even more exciting. With all they changed, from their plans to their phones to their broadband access, it was easy to overlook their poor performance in the second quarter. The focus is on the future. There’s certainly a level of deflection in there — announce a few big things so people forget the subscribers — but I do think that Leap will ultimately benefit from everything it brought to the table on Tuesday. Metro, however, needs not worry about any of that. Its doing fine as is. The competition figures to be a bit more fierce from here on out, though, because Cricket can now compete in many of Metro’s markets. Part of the reason analysts thought a merger was inevitable was because of each company’s spectrum holdings. They had a few, but not many, overlapping markets. Combining would have given them markets across the country. Now, it appears, Leap doesn’t need that. The competition in the third, and especially the fourth, quarters will certainly paint a new picture of the competitive landscape. ]]>
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