Fast 4G and cute ads didn’t help T-Mobile from losing 471k contract customers

T-Mobile had a hard time holding on to subscribers in the first quarter, despite the carrier’s cute Apple-esque TV ads and ever-increasing 4G speeds.

The company announced today that it lost 471,000 contract customers in the first quarter, compared to a loss of 118,000 contract customers this time last year. T-Mobile lost 99,000 customers overall in the last quarter, ending with 33.63 million customers.

It’s not entirely surprising to see T-Mobile subscribers jumping ship — AT&T’s impending acquisition of the company isn’t helping to attract new subscribers, and it’s had a very limited (though high-quality) selection of Android smartphones. Still, it’s going to be interesting to see how long T-Mobile’s subscribers numbers continue to freefall.

T-Mobile’s earnings were $135 million for the quarter on $5.16 billion in revenue. That’s down from $362 million in earnings last year on $5.28 billion in revenue. Contract churn, or the number of subscribers who left the carrier, jumped to 2.4 percent in the quarter, up from 2.2 percent last year.

The company blamed “competitive pressures” for its contract customer loss. It certainly didn’t help that it was facing off with the Verizon iPhone and a slew of other Android smartphones on other carriers.