T-Mobile's CFO Expects Strong Growth in Rural Areas

The way T-Mobile sees it, about 40 percent of the US population lives in smaller markets and rural areas – and the company expects to see strong growth in those areas moving forward. Those markets now represent one-third of the company’s net account production, even though the company is still deploying service to those markets and currently has service available to only about one-third of the small and rural markets in the US, said Peter Osvaldik, T-Mobile executive vice president and chief financial officer. Those new accounts are “very high-quality accounts,” Osvaldik added. T-Mobile’s current market share in small and rural markets is 15 percent but the company expects that to grow to 20 percent by 2025. When the company merged with Sprint in 2019, it committed to covering 90 percent of rural Americans with average 5G speeds of 50 Mbps – a requirement the Federal Communications Commission said would have to be met within six years.