5.9 million subscribers added in Q4

The wireless industry has shown the largest growth in three years, adding a total of approximately 5.9 million subscribers in the fourth quarter of 2009, according to a Wireless Intelligence report. AT&T and Verizon took the lion's share of new customers, sharing approximately 4.9 million new subscribers.

While the iPhone has been credited with maintaining AT&T's strong growth in the industry, Verizon saw a recent boost following the Motorola Droid launch. The latter carrier took advantage of negative press surrounding 3G coverage on AT&T. The limitations were highlighted in the company's "There's a Map for That" ad campaign.

Verizon ended the quarter with 91.2 million subscribers, adding 2.2 million from the previous quarter and marking the largest number of additions since the third quarter of 2008.

AT&T reported its second-best increase of 2.7 million customers, bringing the total number of subscribers up to 85.1 million. The company's acquisition of Centennial Wireless accounted for 863,000 new customers.

Sprint continued to lose customers in the fourth quarter, dropping its subscriber base by 148,000. The carrier has showed consistent negative growth for nearly three years, despite 435,000 prepaid additions driven by Boost Mobile. T-Mobile bounced back from a Q3 loss of 77,000 customers to add 371,000 in the recent quarter.

"The iPhone yet again remained a very strong proposition for AT&T, with 3.1 million iPhone account activations reported for 4Q09 - the second ever highest quarterly total - of which more than a third were new AT&T subscribers," said Wireless Intelligence analyst Jon Groves. "The remaining operators continue to feel the squeeze outside of the device exclusivity and coverage available from AT&T/Verizon in the contract market and the ‘unlimited’ offerings from the likes of Straight Talk in the prepaid segment."

By Electronista Staff