T-Mobile to take No. 3 slot from Sprint: Analysts

NEW YORK — The already heated competition between T-Mobile CEO John Legere and Sprint's chief Marcelo Claure could soon reach stratospheric heights.

Research firm GSMA Intelligence, which tracks the mobile industry, is predicting that T-Mobile may have finally surpassed Sprint in the three-month period ended in June to become the nation's third-largest wireless carrier.

The final tally won't be known until Sprint reports earnings on Aug. 4.

T-Mobile (TMUS), though, is on a roll. It beat Wall Street expectations when it reported its own quarterly earnings Thursday. Revenues hit $8.2 billion, up from $7.2 billion in the same quarter last year. Net income of $361 million fell from $391 million a year ago, but was up from the $63 million loss reported in the first quarter of 2015.

If GSMA is right, the companies — which have been locked in a very public battle for customers that has sometimes spilled over into the Twittersphere — will soon report data showing that T-Mobile has surpassed Sprint in terms of total "connections" (an industry metric for tallying customers) for the first time since at least 2000, when GSMA began tracking the data.

T-Mobile ended the quarter with 58.9 million, a gain of 2.1 million net new customers in the period. GSMA is predicting that Sprint will report 58.3 million "connections" on Aug. 4 — or roughly 600,000 less than T-Mobile.

This could likely exacerbate the already tense relations between the two carriers.

"You can expect (T-Mobile) will make every ounce of hay out of this that is available to them," said John Jackson, mobile analyst with research firm IDC, of T-Mobile taking over the No. 3 slot. "It almost has a psychological significance that trumps the practical significance."

Earlier this month, Legere and Claure went head-to-head over Sprint's new "All-In" plan, which promises a smartphone and unlimited talk, text and data for $80 a month. When Legere, who is known to pick fights with competitors, criticized the plan, Claure fought back on Twitter.

"I am so tired of your Uncarrier bulls**t when you are worse than the other two carriers together," Claure tweeted.

Of course, T-Mobile still has a long way to go before it can catch up with the AT&T and Verizon, the No. 1 and No 2 carriers, respectively.

But Legere has helped lead a turnaround, taking T-Mobile from an industry laggard into the nation's fastest-growing wireless carrier in just three years.

Since joining T-Mobile in 2012, Legere has added customers, and put pressure on the rest of the industry, through a series of "un-carrier" initiatives that have promised to free customers from pesky two-year contracts and that have offered perks like free calls to Canada and Mexico from the U.S.

In the second quarter, T-Mobile posted a profit of 42 cents a share, quite a jump over the 19 cents per share that analysts predicted. Sprint is expected to report a loss of 7 cents a share this quarter, according to data from financial research firm FactSet.

"(Thursday's) results were a real demonstration that the business model is firing on all cylinders," said T-Mobile chief operating officer Mike Sievert in an interview.