T-Mobile Banks $88.3 Billion Year and a Cheeky Culture to Fight Starlink

By Grace Kim

T-Mobile closed 2025 with $88.3 billion in total revenue, up 8.5% year over year, and 142.4 million customers across its services. The company also posted stronger-than-expected third-quarter earnings last week, raised its profitability and cash flow guidance, and said it expects to add roughly 1.0 million postpaid accounts in 2026.

The numbers mark a long climb. When Stephanie Mehta, CEO and chief content officer of Mansueto Ventures, covered tech in the early and mid-2000s, T-Mobile was the smallest and scrappiest carrier in the pack. It leaned into that status starting in 2013, marketing itself as "the un-carrier" with streamlined wireless plans built to take share from bigger rivals. The 2020 Sprint merger ended the underdog era. T-Mobile's market capitalization now sits at about $167 billion—behind Verizon's roughly $186 billion, ahead of AT&T's approximately $144 billion.

Can a $167 billion company stay spunky?

CEO Srini Gopalan, who took the top job a year ago after eight months as chief operating officer, says scale won't soften the culture. After five years of merger integration and network improvements, "this is the right time for us to reignite that thing which we will hold constant, which is our culture, which is 'the un-carrier,'" he said.

For Gopalan, that translates into "disruption for the sake of the customer" and "putting our front line and our people first." The mechanics are concrete:

• Frontline Connect, a program where leaders spend two days in a retail store or care center, previously limited to vice presidents and above, now extends to director-level leaders and up.
• Executive stock-based compensation hinges on a personal commitment to the front line and completion of the program.
• A onetime, performance-based $12,000 stock grant for every eligible employee starts in January 2027.

The frontline push is the spine of Gopalan's plan. He's wiring pay directly to it.

Where does the next growth come from?

T-Mobile keeps adding pricing products. T-Mix, piloted in October and launching broadly this month, lets customers mix and match add-on "picks" such as streaming services or phone upgrades—and switch those picks four times a year instead of annually.

Gopalan also wants growth beyond traditional wireless. He sees room to sell more home broadband, push deeper into business-to-business, and expand financial services, pointing to a credit card T-Mobile issues with Capital One.

His shorthand for the culture he wants is "unmistakably T-Mobile." His definition: "To me, it is an obsession with the customer, an obsession with the front line, but done with a twinkle in your eye, done in a cheeky, irreverent manner, done in a surprising and memorable manner."

Why is AT&T suing?

Competitors say the irreverence crosses lines. Last year, AT&T sued T-Mobile over "Easy Switch," an AI-powered tool that asked rivals' customers to share their logins and passwords to generate personalized wireless offers. AT&T said T-Mobile used those credentials to scrape data and won a federal injunction barring parts of the original feature.

AT&T has since filed a new complaint alleging that T-Mobile's "Switching Made Easy" plan—which promises carrier changes in 15 minutes—is misleading. "T-Mo has been playing fast and loose with the truth for so long, they've forgotten what it is like to be the adult in the room," an AT&T spokesperson said. "We're going to keep calling it like we see it, because we think consumers and the courts know the difference between right and wrong."

T-Mobile says the tool helps consumers. "[AT&T's] CEO is talking about how AI agents can help customers 'get insight as to what works for them,'" a T-Mobile spokesperson said. "We thought so too, and that's why we built Easy Switch. Customers deserve simple ways to understand their options and choose what's best for them. We continue to welcome collaboration with AT&T and others to make that easier, even when customers choose to switch."

Is Starlink the bigger threat?

Investors have a new worry. In early October, the day after Elon Musk's Starlink agreed to acquire cellular spectrum licenses to build a national wireless network, shares of T-Mobile, Verizon, and AT&T each fell at least 8%.

Gopalan shrugs. "Bring them on. From our perspective, we love competition. We think it makes the industry better. It forces us to be better," he said. On Starlink specifically: "They may build a network. It's hard to tell because in the last six months they've said a few different things. If they do, it's going to take a long time."

His counterstrategy: keep investing in the network and the people who sell it. "We're going to love our front line more than we've ever loved them before because that is part of our secret sauce," he said. "That combination of things is our moat. People launch whatever they want, but that's [what] we'll focus on."

T-Mobile is betting a $167 billion carrier can win the next decade the same way a scrappy one did—with frontline obsession and a wink.