T-Mobile's ad spend gains 5.5% to $956m in the third quarter

T-Mobile US booked $956 million of advertising expense in the third quarter of 2026, up 5.5% from $906 million a year earlier, according to the quarterly report the company filed on October 28 alongside results that showed net income rising 27% to $3.46 billion. The same documents contain no revenue figure for Vistar Media and Blis, the two advertising technology companies T-Mobile bought in early 2025 for a combined $801 million in cash, and advertising did not come up on the earnings call that afternoon. Asked about AI agents, chief operating officer Jonathan Freier said T-Mobile had seen nothing emerging around Meta's Muse or its rivals, and nothing "of significance."

In Short

T-Mobile, one of the largest phone companies in the United States, said it earned $3.5 billion in profit in July, August and September and spent $956 million on its own ads, slightly more than a year before. It also owns two companies that sell advertising technology, Vistar and Blis, but did not say how much money they made, so the brands and agencies that buy ads through them learn nothing about that business from these results. Its managers said AI assistants that shop for people, like Meta's Muse, have not changed how customers pick a phone plan so far, though the company is watching them.

The quarter in numbers

T-Mobile published its results for the three months to September 30, 2026, on October 28 in Bellevue, Washington, and held its earnings call at 4:30 p.m. Eastern time the same day. The release, an investor factbook and the Form 10-Q, signed by chief financial officer Peter Osvaldik and dated October 28, carry the same headline figures.

Part of the jump in net income reflects a weak comparison. In the third quarter of 2025, T-Mobile recorded a $278 million impairment of capitalized software development costs for its billing system, or $208 million after tax. Operating income rose 25% to $5.66 billion. Net cash provided by operating activities, by contrast, fell 2% to $7.34 billion because more cash went into working capital, including inventory. Cash purchases of property and equipment fell 14% to $2.27 billion, which the company attributes to the planned timing of capital purchases, and that drop is what lifted Adjusted Free Cash Flow by 5%.

"Q3 marked another strong quarter and is further proof that our winning formula of the best network, best value, and best experiences drives durable and profitable growth," chief executive Srini Gopalan said in the release.

A $956 million advertising bill

The figure most relevant to the companies that sell media to T-Mobile does not appear in the earnings release. It sits in the 10-Q's note on segment reporting, where advertising expense is listed as a separate cost: $956 million for the three months to September 30, against $906 million a year earlier. For the first nine months of 2026 the total was $2,783 million, up 7.8% from $2,582 million, by PPC Land's calculation. The 10-Q names higher advertising expense among the reasons selling, general and administrative expenses rose 5% over nine months, to $17.82 billion.

Measured against revenue, the budget barely moved. Advertising expense equalled 4.9% of service revenues in the third quarter, compared with 5.0% a year earlier, and 4.9% over nine months in both years, according to PPC Land's arithmetic. Spending, in other words, has grown roughly in step with the business rather than ahead of it.

How the money is split between television, digital, out-of-home and other channels is not disclosed. Outside measurement offers fragments. iSpot ranked T-Mobile sixth among US television advertisers in the third quarter, with an estimated $99.0 million across linear and streaming TV, 37.5% of it on streaming. In the second quarter, the Out of Home Advertising Association of America placed T-Mobile fourth among US out-of-home advertisers by total spending. Both are estimates built on their compilers' own methods, and neither covers the full $956 million the company records.

No revenue line for Vistar and Blis

T-Mobile completed its purchase of Vistar Media, which supplies technology for digital out-of-home advertising, on February 3, 2025, transferring $621 million in cash. It completed the purchase of Blis Holdco Limited, "a provider of advertising solutions," on March 3, 2025, for $180 million in cash. Part of each payment settled preexisting relationships between T-Mobile and the two companies, so the 10-Q puts the fair value of consideration at $618 million for Vistar and $174 million for Blis. PPC Land reported the deals at the values used when they were announced, $600 million for Vistar and about $175 million for Blis.

Vistar added $341 million of goodwill and $264 million of other intangible assets to the balance sheet. Blis added total assets of $263 million, including $103 million of goodwill, and $89 million of liabilities. The measurement periods for both deals, during which the assigned values could still be adjusted, closed on February 2 and March 2, 2026.

That is where the disclosure ends. T-Mobile reports a single operating segment, Wireless, and the 10-Q says its chief operating decision maker, Gopalan, evaluates that segment using net income. No revenue, profit or growth figure for T-Mobile Advertising Solutions, Vistar or Blis appears in the release, the factbook or the 10-Q. On the call, neither the executives nor the analysts mentioned advertising at all.

Which income statement line carries advertising revenue is not stated either. The smallest line, Other revenues, rose $29 million, or 12%, to $280 million. The 10-Q's entire commentary on it reads: "Other revenues were essentially flat." The filing does not break the line down.

The silence stands out against what T-Mobile said when the Blis deal closed. At that point, the company stated that its advertising solutions business generated more than $1 billion in annual revenue and that Blis and Vistar together were expected to add about $250 million in revenue, $75 million in EBITDA and $50 million in free cash flow in 2025. None of those figures is updated in the third-quarter documents.

Carrier data and the privacy file

On October 5, three weeks before the results, Vistar announced thousands of audience segments for digital screens built on T-Mobile's carrier data. The segments are sold only through Vistar's own demand-side platform and draw on consented signals, including app ownership, engagement and location insights, according to Vistar, which said T-Mobile turns its network signals into aggregated scores before Vistar matches them to screens. The product is not mentioned anywhere in the results documents.

What the 10-Q does contain is a long record of disputes over customer information. On April 29, 2024, the Federal Communications Commission issued forfeiture orders against T-Mobile and Sprint for allegedly violating section 222 of the Communications Act and the FCC's regulations "governing the privacy of customer information." Both companies paid the penalties under protest and challenged them. A three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia denied their petitions on August 15, 2025, and the court refused rehearing on January 23, 2026. T-Mobile then petitioned the Supreme Court; the filing says that petition "remains pending."

The filing also recounts the August 2021 cyberattack, which produced a class action settlement under which T-Mobile paid $350 million and spent a further $150 million on data security and related technology in 2022 and 2023, and the January 2023 incident in which a bad actor used a single application programming interface to pull data on about 37 million current postpaid and prepaid accounts. Legal-related expenses tied to the 2021 attack, net of insurance recoveries, came to $14 million in the quarter and $84 million over nine months, compared with $10 million in the first nine months of 2025.

The only risk factor T-Mobile updated in the filing concerns cyberattacks, and it now discusses AI directly. "We expect threat actors to continue to increase in sophistication, including through the use of increasingly advanced AI tools, which may accelerate the identification and exploitation of vulnerabilities, enable evasion of security controls, and reduce the time between discovery and attempted exploitation," the 10-Q states. It adds that "the continued development and integration of AI may introduce new and evolving cybersecurity risks" and that T-Mobile has acquired, and continues to acquire, "companies with cybersecurity vulnerabilities or unsophisticated security measures."

AI agents: "nothing of significance"

The exchange most relevant to search and commerce marketers came late in the call. Michael Rollins of Citigroup asked whether early AI agents were influencing customers, and "what that can mean for customers trying to extract more efficiency out of the rate plans and hence, the potential risk to revenue for wireless and broadband for that matter?"

Freier answered. "We haven't really seen anything to date nor do we see anything emerging around Muse or Instinct or any of the AI agents that are out there. But as you would expect, we're watching this very closely," he said.

PPC Land has covered both agents. Muse is Meta's consumer agent, launched in the US on September 8 through a standalone app and WhatsApp, and Sensor Tower estimated it reached 10.2 million US downloads in 40 days. Instinct is a startup personal agent that works over text messaging. Research by Profound found that both browse merchant websites without identifying themselves.

Freier argued that T-Mobile stands to gain if agents begin comparing wireless deals, because of what he called an "asymmetrical advantage": on average, T-Mobile's existing customers pay less than its new ones. Gopalan made the same point earlier in the call, describing a "back book to front book pricing advantage." Freier then drew a parallel with AI search. "Just like AI Search, we like those jump balls and people asking those kinds of questions because it's going to lead them to, if you're not with T-Mobile, you should be with T-Mobile," he said, adding that "we haven't seen anything of significance."

Is that confidence measurable? Freier did not say how T-Mobile detects agent-driven shopping, and he offered no data. Arkose Labs reported on October 21 that 97.7% of legitimate AI agent sessions on its network carried no verified identity, leaving sites unable to confirm which agent sent them.

Earlier in the week of the results, T-Mobile launched T-Mix, a portfolio that lets customers choose which benefits their plan includes and change them later. "84% of surveyed customers want more control of how their wireless plans are structured," Gopalan said, without describing the survey. He discussed the product alongside device subsidies, saying "there's no question that we have seen an increase in subsidies and that's been driven by an increase in device pricing." T-Mix, he said, is "really a response to a customer problem, which is wanting to have more control over their wireless plan," or, put another way, "don't give me a free phone if I don't need one."

T-Life, digital sales and fewer stores

T-Life, the company's app, had 32 million monthly active users at the end of the quarter, up from more than 30 million in June, Gopalan said. More than 80% of upgrades and half of phone line activations in the third quarter were done digitally, a count that includes customers using the app on their own and customers being guided through it by store associates. "More and more of our transactions are being done directly in the app ecosystem," he said.

The store estate is shrinking alongside. In the second quarter of 2026, T-Mobile began closing dealer- and corporate-owned stores "in connection with our ongoing digital initiatives to simplify routine transactions," while moving in part to large-format experience stores. The 10-Q gives two sets of costs: $50 million in the quarter and $158 million over nine months in its management discussion, which counts terminated operating leases among the costs, and $31 million and $133 million in its restructuring note, which lists contract termination, severance and decommissioning. It does not say how many stores have closed or how many remain.

Payroll is falling as well. Employee expenses were $1,978 million in the quarter, down from $2,210 million a year earlier, a 10.5% decline by PPC Land's calculation. The 2025-2026 workforce transformation, which centralized leaders and teams, cut organizational layers and eliminated duplicative roles, has cost $531 million in severance to date. T-Mobile says it intends to reinvest the savings "into the business, including into our digital initiatives."

Gopalan described AI as the engine of much of this. "We boldly said three years ago that we would reduce the number of calls coming into care by 75%. We're well on track on that journey," he said, crediting an AI voice assistant with "not just call deflection, but proactive call prevention." He said "all of our CapEx is directed by an AI-driven tool that we call customer-driven coverage," and that T-Mix is "fundamentally enabled by a very different AI-enabled tech stack" with "significantly lower cost to own inclusive of the cost of tokens." The 10-Q ties the same coverage tool to a network restructuring that is shutting "low customer value sites," with total costs expected at $500 million to $800 million and completion before the end of 2027.

Accounts instead of customers

Since the first quarter of 2026, T-Mobile has reported accounts rather than customers. The 10-Q says the change was made "to better align with the Company's long-held priority on growing high-value accounts, which management believes is the best reflection of value creation versus customers." Phone net additions, broadband net additions and phone churn are no longer published.

Analysts noticed. "I know we're all sort of left a little bit in the dark without subscriber metrics," Craig Moffett of MoffettNathanson said, before asking for postpaid phone churn. "Craig, we didn't give a postpaid phone churn number," Osvaldik replied, adding that it "came in about as we expected" and that "we're trying to resist the urge to kind of walk backwards and focus on KPIs that we don't think are the most relevant for the all of value-creating picture." Andre Almeida, chief marketing, brand and broadband officer, said T-Mobile had "industry-leading FWA nets this quarter," without giving a number.

The account figures that are published softened. Net account additions fell 31% to 274,000, and total postpaid accounts reached 34.97 million, up 3%. Postpaid account churn rose to 1.09% from 0.97%, which T-Mobile attributes to a higher share of broadband-only accounts, whose churn runs higher, and the temporary impact of its rate plan modernization.

Revenue per account moved the other way. Postpaid ARPA rose $6.29, or 4%, to $155.73. The 10-Q credits higher fee revenue, "including from the adoption of tax and fee exclusive plans," the rate plan modernization and more customers per account, partly offset by promotions including bundled offers. Osvaldik said 60% of lines in new accounts are on premium rate plans and that port-in ARPUs are 20% higher than port-out ARPA.

Outside postpaid, revenue fell. Prepaid revenues declined 8% to $2.43 billion on fewer customers and lower revenue per customer. Wholesale and other service revenues fell 7% to $679 million, which the 10-Q attributes to lower MVNO revenues, including from DISH and TracFone; Osvaldik referred to the "faster roll-off of the Boost MVNO."

Devices, promotions and bad debt

Equipment revenues rose 13% to $3.93 billion on a richer mix of high-end phones and higher manufacturer pricing, even though fewer devices were sold, mainly in prepaid. Cost of equipment sales rose 12% to $5.44 billion. The forward-looking statements in the release list "memory chip cost impacts on smartphones" among risks to procurement costs.

The fourth quarter looks more variable than usual, according to management. Gopalan pointed to "a staggered iPhone launch, the increase in device prices," and the fact that not every variant is available. Osvaldik said "there's no base model phone," that third-quarter inventory constraints had pushed some activity and costs into the fourth quarter, and that the holiday season "generally tends to be the most promotionally intensive season."

Credit costs are rising. Bad debt expense was $437 million, against $337 million a year earlier. Bad debt and losses from sales of receivables equalled 1.9% of total revenues, up from 1.6%. The weighted-average effective interest rate on equipment installment plan receivables was 10.9% at September 30, compared with 10.3% at the end of 2025.

Guidance raised at the midpoint

On the call, Osvaldik added that T-Mobile now expects full-year service revenues of about $76.8 billion, 8% growth, and postpaid ARPA growth of about 3.5%, up from 2.5% to 3%. He expects fourth-quarter organic postpaid service revenue growth of about 7%. T-Mobile does not forecast net income.

Buybacks, spectrum and satellites

T-Mobile returned $3.5 billion to shareholders in the quarter: $2.4 billion in buybacks and $1.1 billion in dividends. The average price paid per share was $177.31, down from $242.01 in the third quarter of 2025, and buybacks between October 1 and October 23 averaged $158.68. Osvaldik said repurchases this year had reached $10.3 billion through October 23, against $9.9 billion in all of 2025. The board declared a dividend of $1.17 per share, up 15%, payable on December 10. Up to $4.6 billion remained under the 2026 program at October 23.

The 10-Q sets out a two-year capital plan for 2026 and 2027: up to about $30.0 billion for buybacks and dividends, and more than $22.0 billion in a discretionary envelope that may go to deleveraging, the core business, strategic investments or further returns. Osvaldik signaled where some of it may go. With FCC auctions coming in 2027 and 2028, he expects "probably more and more of our capital allocation envelope being devoted to spectrum." Chief technology officer John Saw named the C-band 2.0 and 2.7 GHz bands. Net debt, excluding tower obligations, was $80.3 billion, or 2.2 times trailing Core Adjusted EBITDA.

Several transactions in the quarter reach beyond phones:

• Satellites: On September 14, 2026, T-Mobile formed a joint venture with AT&T and Verizon that pools spectrum to help satellite providers reach phones directly and close dead zones, including in rural areas. The 10-Q says the venture had no material financial impact.
• SpaceX: T-Mobile completed the sale of its 800 MHz licenses to Grain Management on August 10 for $2.9 billion in cash plus Grain's 600 MHz licenses, valued at $690 million. On October 8, Grain agreed to sell those 800 MHz licenses to Space Exploration Technologies Corp.; T-Mobile is entitled to 50% of Grain's proceeds above its invested capital, costs and a specified return, and has recognized no gain. Gopalan said he sees "no room for an MVNO with SpaceX either on the consumer side or on the Physical and Edge AI side."
• Spectrum: T-Mobile won 102 AWS-3 licenses in FCC Auction 113 for $278 million and on September 21 acquired 600 MHz licenses from TStar 600 for $290 million, to be paid in the first quarter of 2027.
• Fiber: The i3 Broadband joint venture closed on October 1 with a $671 million investment; the GoNetspeed and Greenlight Networks venture, about $2.0 billion, is expected to close in the first half of 2027.

Gopalan also described Kinetic Edge, which he called "a distributed intelligence infrastructure for physical AI," built with Amazon Web Services on T-Mobile's 5G Advanced network. Asked how T-Mobile gets paid, he said early deals sell solutions rather than connectivity or compute, "charging for the solution and taking a share of the reduction of the cost of the device," since devices that offload computing need less battery and less onboard AI. Saw said that when T-Mobile "handed the wheel to AI for doing things like radio resource planning, the gains were actually more than what we expected," in field tests at sites in New York. He said the work was with Ericsson, and that with Nokia "they are already talking about spectral efficiency gains of 20% up to 100% as AI-RAN develops."

Leadership

Gopalan introduced Jessica Uhl as chief financial officer-designate and Chris Sambar as chief enterprise officer. Osvaldik said he and Uhl would "continue to transition over the next few months as part of this long-planned succession process." The 10-Q lists a letter agreement between T-Mobile and Uhl dated September 1, 2026. Deutsche Telekom held about 55.0% of T-Mobile's common stock at October 23 and had voting control over about 55.9%.

Why this matters for the marketing community

T-Mobile occupies three positions in the advertising market at once. It is one of the largest buyers of media in the United States, with $2.78 billion of advertising expense in nine months and top-ten rankings in both television and out-of-home. It owns Vistar, whose platform sells digital out-of-home screens programmatically, and Blis, a location-based advertising company. And its network generates the subscriber signals that Vistar began packaging into audience segments in October.

For the media sellers on the receiving end of T-Mobile's budget, the third quarter brought steady rather than rising intensity: advertising grew 5.5%, slightly slower than service revenue. For the agencies and brands buying through Vistar and Blis, the results provide no measure of scale, growth or profitability, more than a year and a half after T-Mobile put its advertising revenue above $1 billion a year. Single-segment reporting folds both companies into the Wireless results.

The carrier data question carries a regulatory dimension. Vistar's segments use consented signals, according to Vistar, but the 10-Q shows a company still contesting an FCC finding on customer information privacy before the Supreme Court and still carrying costs from a 2021 breach. The documents say nothing about how many customers have given the consent on which the segments depend.

On AI agents, Freier's answer is a data point for marketers tracking how agents such as Muse affect subscription businesses. A large consumer brand says it sees no effect so far and expects to benefit if agents start comparing prices, because its existing customers pay less than new ones. Whether that holds will depend on evidence T-Mobile has not yet published.

What the documents do not say

• Revenue, profit, growth or customer counts for T-Mobile Advertising Solutions, Vistar or Blis, or which income statement line records them.
• What the Other revenues line contains, beyond the statement that it was "essentially flat."
• The October 5 carrier-data segments, their pricing or how many T-Mobile subscribers have consented.
• A channel breakdown of the $956 million advertising expense.
• The number of stores closed, and why the 10-Q gives two different figures for store closure costs.
• How T-Life monthly active users are counted.
• Postpaid phone net additions and churn, 5G broadband net additions and fiber net additions.
• How T-Mobile measures AI agent activity, or the basis for the statement that it has seen nothing of significance.
• T-Mix pricing and the method behind the 84% survey figure.
• Financial terms of Kinetic Edge with Amazon Web Services or of the satellite joint venture with AT&T and Verizon.
• The outcome or timing of the Supreme Court petition in the FCC privacy case.

Timeline

• April 29, 2024 - FCC issues forfeiture orders against T-Mobile and Sprint under section 222 of the Communications Act.
• December 20, 2024 - T-Mobile agrees to acquire Vistar Media.
• January 13, 2025 - PPC Land reports the $600 million Vistar deal.
• February 3, 2025 - Vistar acquisition completes; T-Mobile transfers $621 million in cash.
• March 3, 2025 - Blis acquisition completes; T-Mobile transfers $180 million in cash.
• March 4, 2025 - T-Mobile announces the Blis deal and puts its advertising business above $1 billion in annual revenue.
• August 1, 2025 - T-Mobile completes the UScellular acquisition.
• August 15, 2025 - Appeals court panel denies T-Mobile's petition against the FCC forfeiture order.
• January 23, 2026 - Appeals court denies rehearing; T-Mobile later petitions the Supreme Court.
• First quarter of 2026 - T-Mobile stops reporting customer metrics in favor of accounts.
• Second quarter of 2026 - T-Mobile begins closing dealer- and corporate-owned stores.
• August 10, 2026 - Sale of 800 MHz licenses to Grain completes.
• August 30, 2026 - OAAA ranks T-Mobile fourth among US out-of-home advertisers for the second quarter.
• September 1, 2026 - Letter agreement between T-Mobile and Jessica Uhl.
• September 8, 2026 - Meta's Muse launches in the US.
• September 14, 2026 - T-Mobile, AT&T and Verizon form a satellite spectrum joint venture.
• September 24, 2026 - Board declares a $1.17 dividend, up 15%.
• September 30, 2026 - Third quarter ends.
• October 1, 2026 - i3 Broadband joint venture closes.
• October 5, 2026 - Vistar announces T-Mobile carrier-data segments for digital screens.
• October 8, 2026 - Grain agrees to sell the 800 MHz licenses to SpaceX.
• October 11, 2026 - Profound finds Muse and Instinct browse without identifying themselves.
• October 21, 2026 - Arkose Labs finds 97.7% of legitimate AI agent sessions carry no verified ID.
• October 26, 2026 - iSpot ranks T-Mobile sixth among third-quarter US TV advertisers.
• October 28, 2026 - T-Mobile reports third-quarter results, files its 10-Q and holds its earnings call.
• December 10, 2026 - $1.17 dividend payable.
• First half of 2027 - Expected close of the GoNetspeed and Greenlight Networks joint venture.
• 2027 and 2028 - FCC spectrum auctions T-Mobile plans to prioritize in capital allocation.

Related PPC Land coverage

• T-Mobile acquires Vistar Media's DOOH system in strategic $600 million deal - The January 2025 agreement that brought Vistar's out-of-home platform into T-Mobile.
• T-Mobile acquires Blis - The March 2025 purchase of Blis and the revenue expectations T-Mobile gave for its ad business.
• T-Mobile audience segments for DOOH available only through Vistar's DSP - Vistar's October 2026 launch of segments built on T-Mobile carrier signals.
• DeepIntent gains Vistar DOOH and point-of-care inventory in its DSP - A healthcare buying platform adds Vistar's screens.
• Store locators in the middle of DOOH ads cut visit intent 10%, Vistar finds - Vistar's creative research with Omnicom Media and Annalect.
• US out-of-home revenue tops $3 billion for first time, up 10.7% - OAAA's second-quarter figures and top advertisers, T-Mobile among them.
• Streaming takes 48.7% of US TV ad spend on 21.9% of impressions, iSpot finds - Third-quarter TV spending estimates, with T-Mobile in the top ten.
• Meta's Muse draws 4 of 6 shopping picks from 2 websites, Profound finds - How Muse and Instinct shop on behalf of users.
• Meta's Muse gains 10 million US downloads in 40 days, Sensor Tower finds - Adoption estimates for Meta's agent app.
• 97.7% of legitimate AI agent sessions carry no verified ID, Arkose finds - Why agent traffic is hard to identify.
• FreeCast CEO says attention, not fiber, is telecom's most valuable asset - The argument that network operators will earn more from media and advertising.
• Deutsche Telekom bets on AI inside phone calls - no app needed - AI products at T-Mobile's controlling shareholder.

Summary

Who: T-Mobile US, its chief executive Srini Gopalan, chief financial officer Peter Osvaldik, chief operating officer Jonathan Freier and chief technology officer John Saw, and analysts including Craig Moffett of MoffettNathanson and Michael Rollins of Citigroup. The results concern media sellers that take T-Mobile's advertising budget, buyers using its Vistar and Blis platforms, and marketers watching AI shopping agents.

What: T-Mobile reported advertising expense of $956 million, up 5.5%, and net income of $3.46 billion, up 27%, on revenue of $23.58 billion, up 7%. It disclosed no revenue for its advertising businesses, raised the midpoints of its EBITDA and free cash flow guidance, and said AI agents such as Meta's Muse have had no significant effect on customers so far.

When: The results, investor factbook and 10-Q were published on October 28, 2026, for the quarter ended September 30, 2026, with the earnings call held at 4:30 p.m. Eastern time that day.

Where: T-Mobile is based in Bellevue, Washington, and the figures cover its US wireless, broadband and fiber business. Blis, acquired in 2025, also operates outside the United States.

Why: T-Mobile is simultaneously a top-ten US advertiser, the owner of advertising technology companies and a holder of subscriber data now sold as audience segments. Its results show steady advertising spending, no visibility into its ad businesses, and an untested claim that AI agents will favor its pricing.