T-Mobile USA revenue drops 5.2 percent to $4.9 billion for Q4 2012, customers and income also fall

Is it a good thing that T-Mobile's US operation is in the crosshairs of a MetroPCS merger? We'll see, but meanwhile the operator again shed revenue, customers and profit in Q4 2012. Total revenue dropped during the quarter to $4.9 billion from $5.2 billion last year, while income was down a whopping 25.1 percent to $1.05 billion year-over-year. Meanwhile the company lost 515,000 branded contract customers compared to 492,000 last quarter, representing a 'churn' rate of 2.5 percent in that category, a slight improvement over last year. All that culminated in a rather miserable year for the carrier, which earned $424 million less than in 2011 ($4.9 billion), while showing a total loss of $6.4 billion thanks to depreciation and impairment charges. Meanwhile, parent Deutsche Telecom said recently that MetroPCS would merge with T-Mobile as early as April -- which sounds like it can't come soon enough.