Wall Street firm slashes expectations on carriers' Q4 customer growth [telecom]

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by Mike Dano

The combination of "rational" competition and shortages in the supply of Apples new iPhone X will conspire to significantly reduce the expected growth in wireless customer additions in the fourth quarter, according to a new report from Wall Street investment firm Jefferies.

Specifically, the firm said it lowered its estimates for wireless carriers' customer net additions by an overall 23% for the fourth quarter. That breaks down to:

• Verizon: 685,000 postpaid customer additions in Q4, down from a previous estimate of 808,000.

• AT&T: 445,000 postpaid customer additions in Q4, down from a previous estimate of 568,000.

• T-Mobile: 1,060,000 postpaid customer additions in Q4, down from a previous estimate of 1,115,000.

• Sprint: 200,000 postpaid customer additions in Q4, down from a previous estimate of 365,000.