The Single Most Important Metric For T-Mobile Stock

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The most important figure at T-Mobile US (TMUS) is how much more each postpaid account pays every year. You probably think of T-Mobile as a carrier that wins customers on price, but management now calls its pricing on existing customers a clear advantage. Yet the stock lost 29.2% over the past year while the S&P 500 gained 15.1%. That is the contradiction. So how fast is the revenue from each T-Mobile account actually growing?

How Much More T-Mobile’s Accounts Pay Each Year

Management said on the July 23 call that revenue per postpaid account grew 2% in the second quarter of 2026 from a year earlier. Excluding the customers T-Mobile added by buying UScellular and entering a fiber joint venture, who pay less, that growth was 3.7%. For full year 2026, management guides to growth of 2.5% to 3%, and now expects to land nearer the top of that range.

Incoming customers also pay more than departing ones. Accounts switching to T-Mobile pay about 20% more than accounts switching away, and over 60% of customers on new accounts pick premium plans. Postpaid service revenue, the sales from these accounts, rose 13% in the quarter, faster than the 9% rise in total service revenue. With revenue per account up 2%, most of that rise came from having more accounts.

Is T-Mobile Trading Customers For Higher Prices?

The second quarter’s figures do not suggest that. T-Mobile added 277,000 net postpaid accounts, and postpaid phone churn, a measure of customers leaving, was 0.85. Management called that churn significantly lower than a year earlier. On its July 23 call, T-Mobile faced the question of whether it was pushing price at the cost of customer growth. Management answered that it balances volume against customer lifetime value, what it expects to earn from a customer over the years, and that this value grew by double digits.

The share price appears to give T-Mobile little credit for those figures. Investors pay 16.3 times T-Mobile’s earnings over the last twelve months, compared with 23.0 times for the S&P 500.

What Would Show T-Mobile’s Pricing Is Not Working?

The first sign would be fewer new accounts than management expects. T-Mobile planned to move customers off legacy rate plans in the third quarter of 2026. On the July 23 call, management said it expected that move to raise account churn for a while and hold net account additions in that quarter to about 250,000. Management said the change falls mostly on accounts with fewer lines, so phone churn is hit less. For the full year, the company still expects 950,000 to 1,050,000 net account additions.

Revenue per postpaid account and net account additions are the two figures to watch when T-Mobile reports its third quarter, expected in October 2026.

How To Act On TMUS?

Not necessarily on T-Mobile US alone, if your goal is long-term wealth. Wealth is built by owning the companies that keep outperforming, the leaders of their industries, wherever they are. In T-Mobile US’s own industry, EchoStar stock rose 255% over the five years to October 2026, while T-Mobile US stock rose 43%.

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