It’s may be hard to imagine given how much attention the market pays to the mobile phone market, but the subscriber growth rate in the U.S. wireless industry is rapidly grinding towards zero.
Collins Stewart telecom analyst Greg Miller this morning noted that the industry “continues to slow at a surprisingly fast rate.” The first quarter, he says, could market the first-ever period of negative net subscriber additions in the history of the industry.
For AT&T (T), he cut his forecast for post-paid net adds to 499,000 from 632,000 for Q1, and to 2.607 million from 2.976 million for 2010. For Verizon Wireless (VZ), he now sees net adds for the quarter of 489,000, down from 796,000, and 2.539 million, down from 3.188 million, for the year.
Miller concedes that the weakness in post-paid sub growth will be offset in part by the pre-paid market, he notes that the pre-paid market isn’t as profitable.
In today’s trading:
- AT&T is up 37 cents, or 1.4%, to $26.02.
- Verizon is off 6 cents, or 0.2%, to $30.18.
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