T-Mobile US, Inc. (NASDAQ:TMUS) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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Mike Sievert: Okay. Great, Michael. Well, let’s talk about where we are on synergies this year and what’s left to be done. I mean on the what’s left to be done front, not much the major milestones are behind us, but that doesn’t mean the synergy run rates are quite there yet. So maybe you can comment on that dynamic, Peter.

Peter Osvaldik: Yes, exactly. A few things in there. Of course, we said we have a small tail of customers to still get over and that will allow the final decommissioning of systems and things to that, whether it’s front office, back office, those are the things that are kind of left to do. Certainly, from a cost perspective, there’s a little bit in terms of physical decom while the sites are shut off, there’s still physical decom happening. And on the synergy development, as we get from $7.5 billion to the $8 billion next year, really, the big chunk of that is avoided costs. So we’ll realize the vast majority of the run rate synergies by the end of this year, which you’d naturally expect given we’re saying we’re substantially done. And then the shift to next year will be fundamentally those avoided site build costs.

Mike Sievert: Okay. Great.

Michael Rollins: And then just one other. Can you just share how T-Mobile is looking at the role and mix of online distribution and how you’re viewing the durability of customers wanting a physical retail location to buy an upgrade devices?

Mike Sievert: Yeah, absolutely. And it kind of goes to the premise of your follow-on question, your initial follow-on question, Michael. I mean, obviously, across consumer markets generally, customers want a transaction that’s fast, transparent, simple and mostly digital. And our industry has been very stubborn on that front, mostly due to the complexity of the offers across all the providers. And so that’s something that we’re very focused on. And I know everybody in the industry is. Our digital capabilities are rapidly improving, especially as it relates to self-service for our customers. It’s incredible what’s going on left to right in our company as to how we’re already applying AI technologies and machine learning to speed things up, serve customers in a better way.

And we can get into some examples around that. But because of emerging technologies, there’s a lot of potential over the coming years to not only meet customers where they are finally in this industry because we’ve been kind of slow in this industry due to the complexity of our offers, but also to potentially realize some efficiencies over time. And that’s a good thing because the cost of competition is high. And as you’ve seen over the last few years, it’s gone up. And so it’s all about us seizing opportunities to be able to continue this formula that works so well. And for us to continue to do what we do with this flywheel of success, we can’t sit on our hands. We have to be able to seize new opportunities, not necessarily to outperform the promises we made you.

Those promises were really high, fall some promises, but in some cases, to achieve them in light of what we have seen in the past, which is some increased cost of competition. So at the end of the day, it’s great for consumers.

Jud Henry: All right. Thank you. Next question, please.

Operator: That will come from the line of Rick Prentiss with Raymond James. Your line is open.

Richard Prentiss: Great. Thank you. Couple of questions. I want to follow up on the private network question. Where do you feel that private networks — 5G private networks will become a material enough number on the revenues, an associated question do you feel customers, whether it’s consumer or enterprise really understand what 5G means for them and why they should choose you with your head start. It just seems like the market is still just kind of like, oh, I’m not sure what 5G is.

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