T-Mobile is quickly closing in on No. 3 Sprint

Counterpoint Technology Market Research reported that T-Mobile was the third-largest US purchaser of smartphones in the first quarter, overtaking Sprint.

T-Mobile bought 6 million smartphones for itself and its mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) during the period, according to Counterpoint analyst Neil Shah, outpacing Sprint’s 5 million units. T-Mobile recently posted its best quarter ever, adding 2.4 million subscribers to claim the lion’s share of the US market’s core subscriber growth.

T-Mobile has made big strides with its infrastructure lately, too: it launched voice-over-LTE in Seattle on three handsets, and has been using a technology dubbed 4×2 MIMO to improve signal strength and connection speeds on its LTE network.