Earnings Labs

T-Mobile US, Inc. (TMUS)

Q4 2015 Earnings Call· Wed, Feb 17, 2016

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning. Welcome to the T-Mobile US Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2015 Earnings Call. Following opening remarks, the earnings call will be opened for questions via the conference line, Twitter or text message. Those interested in submitting questions during the earnings call through Twitter can do so by tweeting @TMobileIR using the hashtag TMUSearnings or send a text message to 313-131, enter the keyword TMUS followed by a space. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Nils Paellmann, Head of Investor Relations for T-Mobile US. Please go ahead, sir.

Nils Paellmann - Vice President-Investor Relations

Management

Thank you. Good morning. Welcome to T-Mobile's fourth quarter and full year 2015 earnings call. With me today are John Legere, our President and CEO; Braxton Carter, our CFO; and other members of the senior leadership team. Let me briefly read the disclaimer. During this call, we will make projections and statements about the future performance of the company, which are based on current expectation and assumptions. Our Form 10-K, which was also published today, includes risk factors that could cause our actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements. Reconciliations between GAAP and the non-GAAP results we discuss on this call can be found on the Investor Relations page of our website. Let me now turn it over to John Legere. John J. Legere - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Okay. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us. Welcome to T-Mobile's fourth quarter and full year 2015 Un-carrier earnings call, as well as open Twitter conference. We're coming to you live from our new signature store, which is right here in the heart of Times Square at 46th and Broadway. So, if you are waiting to go to a T-Mobile store, you can't say you didn't know where to find one. We are again providing a live video stream, which I gently remind my colleagues here, so you can watch all the action behind the scenes on YouTube and because we're happy to add some light entertainment, even at our own expense, to earnings. So, we published our own version of the earnings drinking game yesterday, and it's all about T-Mobile. So, that's right. Get your favorite morning beverage and play along. If you can't laugh at yourself, then you might as well be Verizon. I mean, it's early. I've got my iced coffee here for every…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And our first question we'll hear from Brett Feldman with Goldman Sachs. Brett Joseph Feldman - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Thanks for taking the question. I'll just follow up with some of the points that Braxton was just making around Data Stash and leasing. You gave us the color on what you think the Data Stash impact is going to be in the first quarter of 2016. Could you maybe unpack for us what's assumed for the full year because you gave that expected impact of Data Stash and leasing combined? And then you mentioned you're going to maybe shift your emphasis back to EIP. I'm wondering why you decided to shift back and then what's inherently assumed about the adoption of leasing and the guidance you gave for this year. Thanks. John J. Legere - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Sure. Braxton, you start. And then, Mike, jump in. J. Braxton Carter - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Yeah. Good morning. Yeah. The Data Stash impact estimated for the year is between $250 million and $350 million. And remember, that's cash received upfront that's deferred to future periods. That should be added to the $0.7 billion to $1 billion net impact of leasing and Data Stash to understand the true guidance that we're giving on leasing revenue for the year. Mike?

G. Michael Sievert - Chief Operating Officer

Analyst

Yeah. And as we also said, we're going to be using both tools this year. And we wanted to make sure that was clear in the guidance of $0.7 billion to $1 billion on combined leasing and Data Stash. We've got two great ways our customers acquire phones. They're both working out terrifically. And we wanted to make sure, since we're here giving guidance now, to give a number that lets you understand we're going to be employing both tools throughout the year. You can see our current promotion favors EIP. And as Braxton said, that's something you can expect to be favoring in the first half of the year. But when you pan back and look at the year, we wanted you to understand both EIP and JUMP! On Demand and leasing will be tools we'll be using throughout the year. And the $0.7 billion to $1 billion is the number to expect on the annual basis. John J. Legere - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: I think, Brett, the reason this is prominent is that it was highly likely that as people were modeling our exit from Q4 into this year that they probably were assuming a much higher percent of leasing than we currently have. We're not expressing a strong negative opinion on leasing as it relates to EIP. We're just giving you the trend of what we're successfully pulsing into the market right now which, as you can see in the first half, especially, is much more emphasizing on our very successful EIP program, and we retain the right, as we will, to shift the news each tool. So it's more of a way for you to look at what I believe are a very strong set of results and a very strong guidance for the year that has us growing considerably. And the last one would be, just to be clear, because you asked straight ahead, is there anything we're seeing with leasing that would lead us to use both tools this year? And the answer is absolutely not. We're finding great success with both. In the fourth quarter, we tended to favor JUMP! On Demand with our super phone, and we killed it in the fourth quarter. So, both tools work out great for our customers and our company, and both will be in the plan going forward in 2016. Brett Joseph Feldman - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Is there a particular reason why one type of offer resonates a little better at certain points in time than others? John J. Legere - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Well, we like to be a little bit unpredictable competitively. Right now, we've got a great offer out on EIP, but there isn't any magic sauce to it under the covers. Brett Joseph Feldman - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Okay, great. Thanks for taking the question. John J. Legere - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Hey, operator. Next one on the phone?

Operator

Operator

We'll hear from Phil Cusick with JPMorgan.

Philip A. Cusick - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst

Hi. Thanks, guys. I wonder, first, if you could detail the $138 million gain you saw from the sale of a license. Was that a swap or an absolute sale? And then, second, talk about some of the additional markets you bought in the 700 A band. Thanks. J. Braxton Carter - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Yeah. The $138 million gain was a swap. So, that was a non-cash gain, Phil. John J. Legere - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Neville? Neville R. Ray - Chief Technology Officer & Executive VP: Yeah. The 700 new megahertz license is a big excitement for us, so almost 50 million POPs on top of the 20 million license POPs we've secured in the fourth quarter. So, for me and my team, another 70 million POPs are running after we've already started, so very excited about that piece. The footprint is expansive, both geographically as well as the POPs numbers, and it's pretty much coast-to-coast. We've got stuff from Eastern Washington to Florida to Upstate New York to right through the Midwest. So it's a broad expansive set of licenses, and just delighted with the progress we've made on securing more A-band for the coming year. J. Braxton Carter - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: And Phil, the...

Philip A. Cusick - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst

And this essentially... J. Braxton Carter - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: ...total proceeds paid was roughly $700 million, and it's roughly $1.20 per megahertz POP. And there's going to be a lot of goodness as we roll that out during 2016.

Philip A. Cusick - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst

And that includes the spectrum that you traded? J. Braxton Carter - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: That excludes it.

Philip A. Cusick - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst

Excludes. Okay. Thank you. John J. Legere - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Okay. I'm going to go into Twitter, and I think we should answer a question or two from Walt Piecyk. Otherwise, his face is going to take over the entire screen here. I count seven or eight from Walt; at least he's not Periscoping. By the way, if you ever follow Walt on Periscope, they have the most horrific, boring less-followed Periscopes in history like Charades, et cetera. So Walt, I'm following you, but certainly not anybody else. The depth of his questions range from the first one, which is, does Braxton need us to send over a fresh razor#beardgame, which we'll move right by. But I think this is an interesting question because I think its got a lot of pertinent aspects to it. What percent of smartphones in the base can use 700 megahertz A-Block? Neville? Neville R. Ray - Chief Technology Officer & Executive VP: Yeah, I'll take it. So we had a tremendous year last year with driving band 12 700-megahertz A block into our device portfolio and obviously into our customers' hands. We targeted to get to about 50% of our LTE customer base with band 12 and we're there or slightly above. So we're making great progress. Pretty much everything we sell now has band 12 within it. And so we're really starting to unleash the benefits of that great band 12 footprint. John referenced earlier on 190 million covered POPs now with band 12. So a great story and tremendous progress in a very short period of time both deploying the spectrum and getting the handsets into the marketplace where our customers can enjoy the benefits. John J. Legere - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: The other thing…

Operator

Operator

And we'll hear from Simon Flannery with Morgan Stanley. Simon Flannery - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC: Great. Thanks a lot. I was wondering if you could revisit Binge On. Maybe, Neville, you can just talk about where we are on the traffic and how that has worked out in terms of the usage and in terms of the capacity. And then maybe Mike or John on what has it done to your churn in terms of making it stickier for customers? And particularly on the gross adds side, is this more of a retention device or you're really seeing improved porting trends as people see this as a differentiated factor or is that something where you think there's a greater opportunity to drive Binge On awareness? Thanks. Neville R. Ray - Chief Technology Officer & Executive VP: Yeah. Hey, Simon. So when we activated Binge On, we've seen, as we've talked through before, a material reduction in network traffic. So the benefit that Binge On brings with customers now being able to enjoy three times the amount of video approximately compared to prior, that's translating into a reduction in load on the network as they really enjoy a great video experience on their smartphones. That percentage is in the 10% to 12% range in terms of reduction of data that they're seeing on the network through Binge On, so a material shift. John J. Legere - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Mike, do you want to pick up and throw it to me?

G. Michael Sievert - Chief Operating Officer

Analyst

Yeah. Just on the business side, it's kind of, Simon, yes to all of those. But one thing that's interesting you didn't mention is that we're also seeing that Binge On and the rate plans that came out with Un-carrier X are driving not only our brand value proposition, but also driving data attach. We're seeing these are accretive to MRC loading. That's a leading indicator of ARPU. You can see it in our results in the fourth quarter, ARPU was very strong. ABPU and ABPA hit all-time high. That means people now are paying more for T-Mobile services through their own choice of buying more from us than they ever have before in the history of our company. And Binge On, and the way we designed the rate plans and the way they attract people to use more data and buy more data, are a big piece of that. Of course, it helps make us more attractive. We killed it in the fourth quarter. And we think it's a reason to stay. John J. Legere - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah. Let me just add a couple of things and you – at the tail of your question was something about the competitive environment in porting, which I'll touch on because a number of people have been having come in. I maintain my belief that Binge On will be one of the biggest things that we've ever done as a company. And reminding you that it is one of a series of Un-carrier moves that are designed to solve pain points for customers, and this big evolving pain point was overages and overbuying as it relates to the fastest-growing data stream of all, which is video. It's also a preemptive start to our move into video and…

G. Michael Sievert - Chief Operating Officer

Analyst

Yeah. It's going fantastically well. It's one of the things that we probably should talk more about. We're killing it in prepaid and, of course, it's being led by MetroPCS. This is the best brand in the industry in prepaid bar none. Our team is killing it. They're firing on all cylinders. But also some of the macro trends are swinging our way. We've seen a shift in consumers from kind of low-end pay-as-you-go types of plans to these higher quality plans, like MetroPCS has, that are monthly, that are backed by one of the top networks. That favors Cricket to a certain extent as well because they fit that category. But MetroPCS is a much, much stronger brand with far better execution. You'd see it in the numbers. So we're really pleased with what's happening. Specifically to your question, yes, the majority of our growth is on MetroPCS as opposed to our other brands. And we expect the headwinds – rather tailwinds, strong trends in 2016 to continue. John J. Legere - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah. I'll just add a comment. I couldn't be happier or prouder of the MetroPCS team. As we came together with MetroPCS and we kept that brand intact, these guys are running at record pace. And by the way, right now, as we speak, this kind of a week, the volumes of business that these guys are doing are absolutely unbelievable as they have each time. So yes, a majority of our prepaid is coming from Metro, and we will continue to pivot in that direction. I'd actually kind of pose one interesting question. I was talking with the team last night about this. I think T-Mobile is the only company that has successfully run prepaid and postpaid businesses at the same time. If you go back over several quarters, you had this one period or so where I think Sprint thought that it was going to be fun to play in the prepaid game, had some big numbers, but we found out it was heavily to the detriment of their postpaid business. And then they backed off and kind of they're somewhere in between now. Cricket has had some success, but AT&T has been absolutely bleeding postpaid phone mix. You know that AT&T lost 1.5 million postpaid phone subscribers just this year. So contrary to the belief that most of the donation in the industry is coming from Sprint, it's actually coming from AT&T, and I think they're in for a bit of a rude awakening. So the prepaid business, very strong and an awful lot more that we can do. And by the way, we see MetroPCS' main target to not be Cricket per se, but to be Sprint. And I think you'll see a lot more about the competition between MetroPCS and Sprint.

G. Michael Sievert - Chief Operating Officer

Analyst

Just a quick fact to it on that, it's interesting, although we just violated the drinking game, so everybody can drink while I'm sharing the factoids (33:37). John J. Legere - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thanks, Mike.

G. Michael Sievert - Chief Operating Officer

Analyst

Yeah, you're welcome. What's interesting is, traditionally, MetroPCS and Sprint postpaid have – Sprint has been a significant contributor to MetroPCS. And you might have seen that we're targeting Sprint customers with the latest promotion. Well, porting from Sprint customers is up by about 50% since we began that promotion. So it shows that there's a lot of affinity for MetroPCS from that customer base with the same kind of focus on low prices and value. John J. Legere - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Let us go back to the phone.

Operator

Operator

And we'll hear from Michael Rollins with Citi.

Michael I. Rollins - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst

Hi. Good morning. Thanks for taking the questions. Two, if I could. First, I was curious if you could disclose how much synergy you recognized in 2015 from MetroPCS and then how much is left to recognize during 2016? And then secondly, almost a year ago, the company discussed the efforts to focus on the business segment and to take advantage of the expanding LTE coverage by expanding the marketing footprint. Can you give us an update on each of these initiatives and if there's a way to quantify the impact to results from those aspirations that you've had? Thanks. John J. Legere - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Great. So we've got synergies on MetroPCS, we've got the at-work marketplace, and then I thought I heard more about the retail... J. Braxton Carter - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Marketing footprint expansion. John J. Legere - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: ...footprint expansion. Okay. Braxton? J. Braxton Carter - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Yeah. So, on the synergies, Mike, the $1.5 billion plus of run rate synergy, we're there now in the first quarter of 2016 and it's fully embedded in our guidance. During 2015, roughly $0.5 billion of that was CapEx synergy, and that certainly was achieved with the shutdown of the CDMA networks on July 1st of last year. The balance of the $1 billion worth of OpEx, which was primarily driven by network expenses, continued to ramp throughout the year. And it's really interesting, when you look at cost of service and the cost of running our network, not only a significant decline as a percent of revenues, but absolutely down in dollars year-over-year and that was the recognition. Not 100% of the synergy was there, but by the end of the year we had reached a run rate that was the majority of the synergy. But you can definitely count on Q1 being at full run rate. What a success story after so many failed mergers and failed integrations in the history of wireless, very, very well executed. John J. Legere - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Mike?

G. Michael Sievert - Chief Operating Officer

Analyst

Yeah. You asked two questions about starting with the business customers. Our business sales are going fantastically well, and it's one of the things we probably should talk more about. Just a couple of quick statistics. In the fourth quarter, our run rate was more than double what it was earlier in the year and more than double the prior year, so fantastic run rate, more than four times though at retail. So it shows that our focus on small and medium businesses really took off in 2015. But what's interesting is that it wasn't just limited to small and medium businesses. Even though we focused there and we said we were going to focus there, we saw a surprising influx from enterprise customers as well, who really appreciated the overall value proposition that we brought and that we continue to bring. So very pleased with what we're seeing on the business front. You asked about the marketing footprint. Right now, if you kind of think about where we have our full mix, our network is in full swing and our distribution is in full swing. That part of the country represents about 230 million POPs. Think about that. We're rolling up all the growth in the industry, more growth than AT&T, Verizon and Sprint combined. And yet, our full mix of marketing distribution and network are in about 230 million POPs. We see an opportunity to increase that this year and into, say, the middle of next year by 30 million or 40 million as we fill that distribution, conduct local marketing and, of course, finish the 700-megahertz roll-outs that we talked about. So there's a great opportunity to continue to expand where we have our full competitive suite, and we see it in about that range, 30 million or 40 million within the next year, year and a half, rolling out systematically. John J. Legere - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Okay. I want to acknowledge Jim Patterson who has sent in a bunch of questions. And, Jim, I'm not sure – why don't we do this. Since you're live and active here, rather than pick from one of your plethora of questions, send whichever one you want me to answer and I'll get that one next. And I want to point out I'm one of your weekly avid readers and I think you do a great job. You focus a little too much on that yellow company, but your thoughts are generally very good. Let's go on the phone one more time, while I wait for Jim's incoming.

Operator

Operator

And next, we'll hear from Amir Rozwadowski with Barclays.

Amir Rozwadowski - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst

Thank you very much. I was wondering if we could chat a bit more about how you folks are looking at sort of tackling opportunities for gaining subscribers in 2016. Historically, you have been Un-carrier when it comes to how you promote through the course of the year. And I was wondering how we should think about sort of your seasonal marketing trends through the course of the year. And then also, if we think about sort of the bolstering effect of your low-band spectrum in the 700-megahertz arena, how does that provide you with additional opportunities for markets that perhaps didn't have as strong coverage before, but now have been sort of augmented with additional capacity and reach? John J. Legere - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Okay. I'm going to start in dual acknowledgement on the first piece, and I'll turn to Mike to cover both of those along with Neville. But one of the things you said was that we have, in the past, been Un-carrier in our marketing approach. We know no other way. I mean it's the basic fabric of who we are and you'll continue to see the same things that we do. We don't have the same gigantic TV spend that the other guys have. We're very targeted. We use social extremely well, and you'll see that. Now, I did want to acknowledge the team of people at T-Mobile who I thought made a great set of commercials at the Super Bowl. I think we played way above our weight class. And if you probably saw on the YouTube AdBlitz summary, we were voted the number two and three top commercials at the Super Bowl. And Peter DeLuca and our whole team and the outside agencies I thought did a fantastic, fantastic job; something to be very proud of. And at the same time, our network was cleaning things up. And I think you'll continue to see that fun, innovative marketing approach. But Mike, do you want to comment on that?

G. Michael Sievert - Chief Operating Officer

Analyst

Yeah. I think just to build on it. One of the things, Amir, that you can expect from us is that we're – as John was saying a few minutes ago, we pulse in and out with promotions. But we only pulse in with Un-carrier moves, meaning, when we come up with these major changes in how the industry works, they're permanent. So, Binge On, for example, is a big move that we think addresses one of the most important needs customers have as Internet consumption switches to mobile. And as video consumption takes off, we wanted to solve a major problem. So, those are the kinds of things we do with our Un-carrier move. And yeah, we've got – we're far from being done. This hash tag we throw around, it isn't rhetoric. We won't stop. We've got a lot left to do on Un-carrier moves. Promotions are different. They pulse in. They pulse out. We're there to meet the need when the market's there. For example, February is a big month in this industry as people have tax refund checks, et cetera. We have an active promotion right now, and you can continue to expect that game plan going forward. And then, finally, you talked about rolling out our network and our commercial operation. I addressed that right before the question. But, yeah, we do see a big opportunity to continue to roll out our retail footprint and our network in a coordinated fashion and that's what you can expect from us. It's incredible that Neville and his team have that entire 190 million POPs swap already complete. Now we have 20 million POPs more on low band from fourth quarter, and 48 million POPs more we just announced today that we'll get to work on and simultaneously,…

Operator

Operator

And we'll hear from Craig Moffett with MoffettNathanson.

Cathy Yao - MoffettNathanson LLC

Analyst

Hi. This is actually Cathy Yao calling in for Craig. I just had a question on bad debt expense, which includes the loss from sale receivables. That number increased. I think last time we had talked about it, you mentioned that bad debt expense rose earlier in the year because of increasing build size (47:11) rather than an actual increase in the frequency of defaults. It looks like the prime mix went down in the quarter, which you attributed due to the sale of receivables. Can you talk a little bit more about the moving pieces and what you're doing in terms of tightening up credit policies as you mentioned in your investor briefing? J. Braxton Carter - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Yeah, sure, and good morning.

Cathy Yao - MoffettNathanson LLC

Analyst

Hi. J. Braxton Carter - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: We, in the third quarter, definitely signaled that we'd see a slight uptick in bad debt expense in the fourth quarter and that's exactly what happened. I think more importantly, going forward, churn is definitely a forward indicator. We're highly confident that Q1 results will be sub-Q3 levels of bad debt expense. When you look at some of the details, there actually was a sequential decrease in bad debt expense, but we, on our securitization of receivables, did an extension to the facility that accounted for a slight uptick in that category relating to some accounting ramifications of that extension, so great news. We also talked about, in prior calls, the increase was a function of a shift to subprime during the cash-rich tax season of the prior year. And certainly...

Cathy Yao - MoffettNathanson LLC

Analyst

Right. J. Braxton Carter - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: ...there is an impact due to higher amounts financed on smartphones. But to really counteract that for the upcoming year, we've taken several steps that have tightened credit for subprime during the first quarter of this year to counteract that phenomena that we saw in the prior year. So, yeah, we are very focused on this issue, and you'll see a lot of real positive developments in Q1. And thank you for pointing out the prime/subprime mix. When you look at our disclosures in the K, the face of it shows that there was more of a shift to subprime. That is solely a function of the EIP securitization. The facility that we put in place has a cost of capital of 2%, and we spent a great deal of time optimizing this throughout the year. We could have knocked the transaction out much earlier at a higher cost but we're looking at efficiency of the securitization and, of course, one of the very low cost of capital. And we did that through tranching off higher prime segments for the securitization. And since those went off balance sheet, there's a distortion in the mix. In our fact book, we do normalize that, and there has been no change whatsoever in the prime/subprime mix from Q3 to Q4.

Cathy Yao - MoffettNathanson LLC

Analyst

Okay. Got it. Thank you. That's very helpful. John J. Legere - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Okay. Next question on the phone.

Operator

Operator

And we'll move to John Hodulik with UBS.

John Christopher Hodulik - UBS Securities LLC

Analyst

Okay. Thanks. Just a couple of questions on some of the metrics, first on churn. There's a lot of – you guys gave a lot of detail firstly around band 12 and Binge On, but you got tougher comps coming in the first quarter. Maybe for Braxton, do we have a sense that you're going to continue to see the same sort of year-over-year trends that we've seen up until this point as we look out to 2016? And similarly on ARPU, you saw some – actually some nice sequential improvement in ARPU on a year-over-year basis, and you talked about higher data, tax rate. Can we depart from sort of the flat ARPU outlook and potentially look for some improvements in ARPU going forward? Thanks. J. Braxton Carter - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Yeah. Sure. So, I think Mike touched on this earlier. One of the real benefits of the rapid roll out of the 700 megahertz is higher customer retention and satisfaction and that's one of the underlying trends that we're seeing in churn. And as we continue to seed the base with 700 megahertz handsets and as we continue to roll out the spectrum that we acquired in the fourth quarter and the new spectrum that we just acquired, there should be goodness coming. Early indications for Q1, very favorable trends in the churn profile. From an ARPU standpoint, we continue to look at this as general stability. And John, I think one of the things that you have to do is you have to look at some of the impacts of Data Stash on ARPU. Data Stash is cash received that's deferred to future periods. There was about a 1.2% positive impact in the fourth quarter on Data Stash due to the expiration…

G. Michael Sievert - Chief Operating Officer

Analyst

Oh, yeah. You also asked about churn. It's going really well for the reasons we talked about a few minutes ago. Our customers are more satisfied than ever. Our churn levels have been falling throughout the year. Q4 was our best quarter of the year on churn when you look at it on a year-over-year basis with 27 basis points of improvement, which was just terrific. So, our team is really killing it when it comes to satisfying customers and keeping them at T-Mobile. Last year in Q1 was an all-time record on churn. So, that was our best quarter. And we see a real opportunity going forward to potentially establish a new all-time record. So, we're feeling good about the trend lines.

John Christopher Hodulik - UBS Securities LLC

Analyst

Great. Thanks, guys. John J. Legere - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: What Mike means to say is he's highly confident that we will have better churn in Q1 than ever before. Listen, I just want to put one tiny – again, I know this is earnings and everything is going to be very quantitative – but there is something that's happening at T-Mobile that you can't ignore and I say this all the time since we started this journey, getting aggressive on the marketing, acquiring customers has two things that we needed to show. One is that it would lead to revenue growth, would lead to profitability, would lead to cash and we've talked about that today. Second thing, though, is that ultimately, the network would become the same breadth and reach and speed or better than anybody else, which it has and that's why we will continue to fight the perception issue because customer experience for us is improving. And that's why churn is at all-time low. But please don't jump past the fact that three out of the last four periods of six months each that our customer care organization was voted JDP number one, and I will tell you that in the latest period, they had the highest score ever by a wireless carrier ever in the United States. So, that experience and the culture of this company, which I would tell you, goes beyond just the customer care organization. Every employee in this company spends every waking moment either on social or directly taking care of customers and that's a big deal. You won't see us referring to our customer care organization as a unit cost that needs to be decreased. It's a significant value add of our business and it's part of why, altogether, we do see ourselves moving to churn levels that the company has never seen before. Okay, next question.

Operator

Operator

We'll move to Jonathan Chaplin with New Street Research.

Jonathan Chaplin - New Street Research LLP

Analyst

Thanks. Couple of quick questions for Braxton on the guidance. So, Braxton, you humiliated your subscriber net add guidance for 2015. I'm wondering if you're taking the same sort of conservative approach to EBITDA guidance for 2016. And the guidance range is pretty wide. Given that subscriber growth doesn't have the same drag on EBITDA now with EIP and leasing that it used to, what determines where you come in within that range or maybe even above the high end of the range? And then finally on this topic, as I look at the midpoint of cash EBITDA guidance and CapEx guidance and what you're paying in interest expense, it seems like you're looking at sort of equity free cash flow of about $2.5 billion before you factor in the impact of working capital drag and factoring – what should the working capital drag in factoring be? What should we be sort of thinking of for those factors to get to get to equity free cash flow? Thanks. John J. Legere - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Braxton, I think the first question was I know you just gave subscriber guidance five minutes ago but are you laying down – and this is the first tee on golf, and we think that you're lying about your handicap. So, I think your track record over the past couple of years of significantly outdoing your guidance has caught up with you. J. Braxton Carter - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Yeah. The gig is up, Jonathan. No. We're playing exactly the same game plan that we played the last two years. We did actually increase the postpaid net add guidance range over where we started at 2015, which is a signal of our confidence and the momentum of Un-carrier.…

Jonathan Chaplin - New Street Research LLP

Analyst

Right. But you commented sort of the midpoint of expectations on EBITDA. Can we assume the same increase in free cash flow that you see in EBITDA for the year? J. Braxton Carter - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Again, there's true variables, what is our true interest carry going to be and how much growth that we have. But I think, directionally, you're looking at it correctly.

Jonathan Chaplin - New Street Research LLP

Analyst

Awesome. Thanks, guys. J. Braxton Carter - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: You're welcome.

Nils Paellmann - Vice President-Investor Relations

Management

Let me jump over and take one of the questions that's coming in from the IR site, Andrew Beal (1:02:16). SG&A grew 15% in 2015 versus 11% service revenue growth. Why is that? And can you get SG&A back below 40% of service revenues? Thanks. J. Braxton Carter - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Yeah. So when you look at SG&A, really interesting story there. In true G&A, there was about $200 million year-over-year increase, and roughly half of that is bad debt expense. And again, we've talked a lot about bad debt expense on the call. The other half is the transformation that we're undergoing in our IT infrastructure. We're modernizing our back office systems. We're migrating from facilities-based apps to cloud-based apps. There's a different accounting construct when you go to cloud. And all of that's good news because at the completion of the modernization efforts we expect on significant efficiencies coming through the business. The balance of what we're doing is a function on the S part of SG&A. And the increases that we're seeing relate to the overall volume that we're seeing of gross adds increasing during the year. Very targeted. Our spend is certainly on at the level that you're seeing with AT&T and Verizon, or for the Drinking Game Dumb and Dumber. And the way to look at this, I think, appropriately is from a cost per gross adds standpoint. And when you take the total selling expenses divided by the gross add production, we're fairly flat on a year-over-year basis. So, really, no changes other than continuing scale of the business.

Nils Paellmann - Vice President-Investor Relations

Management

Okay. There's a question Jim Patterson sent in, which is how is the M2M or machine-to-machine business coming along? Is there a transition from 2G to 4G underway and timeline? John J. Legere - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: It's a real strong point for us. And one of the things you see within our wholesale business is that while there has been some softening of the low-end wireless subscriber, MVNO type of business that we see, in favor of big brands like MetroPCS that I already talked about. To counterbalance that, machine-to-machine is really taking off. And it's based on the trends that you've heard of a million times, the Internet of Things, and it's real and people want access to these wireless networks. One of the things that I think is going to favor T-Mobile in 2016 in this area is that we have made an announcement and the commitment to our machine-to-machine partner base that we will have a GSM layer up at least through 2020. And so, I'll get to your question about LTE coming on in a minute, but this is really important because there's a big legacy base out there whether it's alarm systems, all kinds of applications that are already on the GSM base. And we're the only carrier committing to have GSM in place through 2020, which is a huge strength. The other thing we're doing is working very closely with our partners to transition to LTE. And we're seeing the cost of modules coming way down, and we're helping with that. And it's also going to be a source of strength for us as we refresh these relationships and bring new relationships in. So, Jim, generally, speaking, it's going really well, and we're very optimistic about machine-to-machine growth in the next year and two years.

G. Michael Sievert - Chief Operating Officer

Analyst

If I could just add a couple of points on the tech side here. And so, you guys understand what's happening with GSM. It accounts for less than 5% of our core volume today. And so, back to the top of the discussion on capacity and growth, we're driving extremely hard into LTE for a voice experience. And what we're doing with GSM, as customers migrate away from all 2G voice experiences, is we're now able to commit this greater volume of spectrum to LTE and at the same time really thin out the GSM layer. And you've seen some of our competitors abandon GSM in a huge rush because they haven't figured out how to carry great services like many of the M2M services on a thin GSM layer. So we're going to do both. We'll maintain GSM. Keep it thin. And at the same time, migrate the lion share of our use on the network over to LTE.

Nils Paellmann - Vice President-Investor Relations

Management

Okay. Let's go back to the phone. We'll take one or two more.

Operator

Operator

And we'll hear from Ric Prentiss with Raymond James. Ric H. Prentiss - Raymond James & Associates, Inc.: Thanks. Good morning, guys. J. Braxton Carter - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Good morning. John J. Legere - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Good morning, Ric. Ric H. Prentiss - Raymond James & Associates, Inc.: Seeing Braxton's previous hat, I think it might be worthy of a question about Mexico. How is the No Borders going along and then I'll come up with a follow-up question. John J. Legere - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Go ahead, Mike.

G. Michael Sievert - Chief Operating Officer

Analyst

Yeah. This is a big source of strength for us. As you know, in the middle of the summer, we announced Mobile without Borders. It was an amp of one of our prior Un-carrier moves, Simple Global. And this is still one of the biggest reasons why people come to T-Mobile. We started down this path in the fall of 2013 and still today, over two years later, it's distinctive. It has not been copied. You can travel all over the world with T-Mobile and have completely unlimited and free data. You can have free texting. Your voice minutes are $0.20. And in Canada and Mexico, it's full speed LTE and minutes are included in your plan. And so, just removing borders is something that is particularly important for people that live near borders, but it's also important to business customers and many other segments. We've seen our business respond in places like Southern California, Texas – in Texas, in border cities like Seattle. So it's really nice to see the business responding. And, of course, we're investing in local advertising in these areas as well to make sure people know that when they cross that border, absolutely nothing changes. They just keep using their plan as normal. Ric H. Prentiss - Raymond James & Associates, Inc.: Okay. That's great. And then maybe a question for Neville as well. You've done a great job on LTE, VoLTE, the low band stuff, the treadmill never stops. What are your thoughts on 5G? What the heck is it going to be? Is it low band? Is it high band, connected cars, virtual reality, augmented reality? But just kind of as we look out into the future give you a chance to wax on maybe about 5G. Neville R. Ray - Chief Technology…

Operator

Operator

And we'll move to Walter Piecyk with BTIG.

Walter Piecyk - BTIG LLC

Analyst

First of all, John, my Periscope game has definitely stepped up. If you were watching yesterday, I had a great one with some wolves out in South Salem, in New York. So, everyone should... John J. Legere - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: And (1:14:04)

Walter Piecyk - BTIG LLC

Analyst

...everyone should subscribe to @Walt. No, there was 100 concurrent streamers. I think I had like 300 total. The game has stepped up there, @WaltBTIG. Please subscribe. John, can you just, A), go back to the A block question, which is are you adding distribution points in these areas where you're lighting up A block? Because if you look up in Westchester and Connecticut, you put 700 megahertz there, so now we're getting coverage, but are you going to start to add more T-Mobile stores in some of these areas that you're lighting up? John J. Legere - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah. And I think, Walt, I think Mike attempted to answer this a couple of times. But I think what we've said is we currently cover about 230 million or so POPs with retail distribution. And we see an immediate possibility of covering another 30 million to 40 million more POPs with retail distribution. And we're already underway, mostly through TPR, to add 300 to 400 more retail stores immediately, but more following beyond that. But, Mike, is there any...?

G. Michael Sievert - Chief Operating Officer

Analyst

Nope. That's it. John J. Legere - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: So, yes, Walt, that's a big, big part. And I – as I'm going through all of the Twitter feeds, there's quite a few customers, and it happens mostly on My Social, and I know it would be hard for you to understand, but My Social is one of those where a lot of people actually come in and speak to me. But quite a bit of it is, hey, we love what you're doing, when are you coming to Arkansas, or when are you coming here or when are you coming? And I think that is a big part of what we do. So, we immediately think there's a 30 million to 40 million more POPs of coverage that we can build retail distribution on.

G. Michael Sievert - Chief Operating Officer

Analyst

TPR stands for T-Mobile Premium Retailer for people listening in. That's a partnership strategy. We've rolled out stores with partners. We'll also be doing some corporate stores, and we're coming today to you from our first signature store here in Times Square, as John said a few minutes ago. And we expect to do more of this as well, not a lot more, I mean these are signature stores, but there are some more of these coming your way as well, big format, experiential stores where you can really see the full power of wireless and what it can do for you. John J. Legere - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: And, Walt, I promise that I'll come in to one of your Periscope and share with my followers, and you may have a record...

Walter Piecyk - BTIG LLC

Analyst

John, I don't need your – John, I do not need your help. The quality of my Periscopes were going to attract plenty of users. But I do have one follow-up. I do have one follow-up which is, can you talk about any thoughts that you may have in 2016 about launching your own over-the-top video service? Something to add another service, maybe, for your customers? Obviously, you're getting a lot of experience with Binge On. It's something you can integrate on the wireless side. Just talk to us about, is this something you're looking at, and what's the possibility of getting something done in 2016?

G. Michael Sievert - Chief Operating Officer

Analyst

Yeah. I'll start. I mean, it's what we said from the stage when we were doing Binge On. It's going to depend on what our customers want. That's what always guides the Un-carrier strategy. We listen and we figure out what they want, what can change the industry, and then we go and do that. It's a pretty simple formula on Un-carrier. What we said then was the jury is out. What we had to go on at that time was go90 from Verizon. It was extremely unpopular. And so, we were looking at it saying, hey, that's obviously not something that customers' want, which is to hire Verizon, to curate their content for them. But we have our ear down, we're listening, and if it's something our customers want, then we'll look at it. John J. Legere - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah. And, Walt, I haven't used this analogy in this call, so I'm going to put it out there one more time because it's really a good reminder and we said at past quarters in a row. We maintained the belief that all content is going to the Internet and all Internet is being consumed mobile. What we've done now is we've made it very clear in the recent past that in that continuum there's one thing we do really well and we're going to focus on it. But things like Binge On where the (1:18:00) expressing how we can use our position to migrate on that continuum in ways that people hadn't thought about. So, what I think we've done is we served notice that either through partnership, merger and acquisition, and/or investment, we are going to use that position in this brand to migrate what's happening on that continuum, and we rule out no aspect of it. But I think it's also got much broader implication for the larger players in the cable industry and the content industry. And I think we're very pleased and proud to be really good in growing in brand and prominence in one of the pieces of that very important and growing continuum.

Walter Piecyk - BTIG LLC

Analyst

Well, got it. Thank you. John J. Legere - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Let's take our last question before Walt speaks anymore.

Operator

Operator

And we'll hear from Colby Synesael with Cowen & Company. Colby Synesael - Cowen & Co. LLC: Great. Thanks for fitting me in. I wanted to go back to, I think it was Jonathan Chaplin's question regarding free cash flow and EIPs. So, you guys sold $795 million of EIP receivables in the fourth quarter. I was wondering if there was a comparable number we could think about for 2016 that you think you could ultimately sell or at least give us an idea of what the capacity is of what you could sell? And then another question that we get quite often is the potential impact of leasing on upgrades. So, if you think about it, with leasing I think that you guys allow customers to potentially trade in their device ultimately three times I think per year. Not that I think that that's going to happen, but if you do start to see customers trading their device more frequently than they do on EIP, one could argue that there could be a greater cash outlay responsibility by T-Mobile that could potentially be negative at least in the short-term to free cash flow. What do you think that the impact of leasing is going to be on the upgrade velocity as we go forward? Thank you. J. Braxton Carter - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Yeah. Sure. Yeah, we'll continue to look for opportunities and securitization. Leasing creates some different challenges because you basically have a cash stream flow versus an asset on your balance sheet. And you have to look at the construct a little differently. It is something that we're taking a look at. We have zero interest in doing a transaction that the yellow guys did that has a high single-digit cost of capital…

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes the T-Mobile US fourth quarter and full year 2015 conference call. If you have further questions, you may contact the Investor Relations or media departments. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect and have a pleasant day.