T-Mobile Beats Third Quarter Estimates as Postpaid Growth Lifts Revenue to $23.58 Billion

T-Mobile US beat Wall Street estimates in the third quarter of 2026, reporting earnings of $3.22 a share as customer growth on its premium postpaid plans lifted both profit and revenue. Net income rose to $3.46 billion, or $3.22 a share, from $2.71 billion, or $2.41 a share, in the same quarter a year earlier, The Wall Street Journal reported. The earnings figure came in ahead of the $2.89 a share consensus estimate from a FactSet poll of analysts.

Revenue rose 7.4 percent to $23.58 billion in the quarter ended September 30, 2026, Reuters reported, above the $23.15 billion that analysts expected in LSEG data. The total was up from $21.96 billion a year earlier, according to Zacks. Postpaid service revenue rose about 9 percent from a year earlier to $16.27 billion, the Journal reported.

Postpaid growth beats forecasts

T-Mobile added 274,000 postpaid net accounts in the quarter, more than the 251,917 additions that analysts polled by Visible Alpha had expected, according to Reuters. Average revenue per postpaid account rose 4 percent to $155.73. More than 60 percent of the postpaid lines among new accounts chose the company's top tier plans, Chief Financial Officer Peter Osvaldik told Reuters, a mix that supports the higher service revenue collected per account.

Guidance raised at the low end

The company raised the lower end of its full year adjusted free cash flow forecast to $18.7 billion from $18.4 billion, and kept the upper end unchanged at $18.8 billion, Reuters reported. For the full year, T-Mobile now expects postpaid net account additions of about 1 million, the midpoint of its earlier forecast range of 950,000 to 1.05 million, and it narrowed its profit forecast for the year, according to the Journal. Zacks calculated that the $3.22 earnings figure was a 12.59 percent surprise over its own $2.86 consensus estimate.

New T-Mix plans arrive in November

T-Mobile plans to broadly launch its new T-Mix wireless plans in November 2026, Reuters reported. The plans will let customers choose and swap perks such as streaming subscriptions and food delivery, rather than receiving benefits bundled into fixed plan tiers. Chief Executive Srini Gopalan said, "We're just getting started," according to The Wall Street Journal.

The results were released after the close of trading on October 28, 2026, in an earnings slate that also included Microsoft and Alphabet. For T-Mobile, the quarter turned on the same point as the guidance change: postpaid customers are still joining, and most new accounts are paying for the company's most expensive plans.