(Corrects year-ago GAAP revenue to $4.89 billion, not $4.26bln; error also occurred in update 1)
By Sinead Carew
Nov 5 (Reuters) - T-Mobile US Inc, the No. 4 U.S.mobile provider, reported third-quarter subscriber growth wellahead of expectations on Tuesday, and showed it was puttingpressure on market leaders Verizon Wireless and AT&T Inc.
T-Mobile shares rose 3.6 percent in premarket trade after itreported its second straight quarter of growth after four yearsof customer losses.
T-Mobile US, 74 percent owned by Deutsche Telekom AG, has been fighting aggressively to return to growthby sharply criticizing its bigger rivals in its marketing andselling itself as more consumer-friendly.
It added 648,000 net subscribers in the quarter, comparedwith the average expectation for 444,000 subscribers, accordingto seven analysts contacted by Reuters.
While its biggest rival, Verizon Wireless, reported muchfaster overall subscriber growth of 927,000, T-Mobile blew pastcustomer additions at No. 2 U.S. mobile provider AT&T, whichadded 363,000, and Sprint Corp, which lost 360,000 in thequarter.
Excluding connections to devices such as tablet computers,T-Mobile reported phone subscribers of 643,000 that beat VerizonWireless's growth of 481,000. Without tablets, AT&T would havereported subscriber losses in the quarter, according toanalysts.
"It's overall a good quarter," said Hudson Square analystTodd Rethemeier. "Customer growth was much better than expected,which usually results in lower profitability but in this casethey made up for it elsewhere and total profitability wasroughly in line with my estimate."
Rethemeier said T-Mobile's adjusted earnings beforeinterest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of $1.34 billionwas not far behind his estimate of $1.36 billion, likely becauseof savings from its merger with MetroPCS.
After two quarters of beating expectations, T-Mobile wasalso able to increase its customer growth target for 2013 to arange of 1.6 million to 1.8 million from its previous targetrange of 1 million to 1.2 million.
Its net loss narrowed to $36 million in the third quarterfrom $7.74 billion in the year-ago period, when it incurred amassive goodwill impairment charge of $8.1 billion.
Total revenue jumped to $6.69 billion from $4.89 billion,primarily due to the MetroPCS merger earlier this year.
Verizon Wireless is owned by Verizon Communications Inc and Vodafone Group Plc.
T-Mobile shares rose to $29.35 from a Monday close at $28.34on the New York Stock Exchange. (Reporting by Sinead Carew; Additional reporting by ChuckMikolajczak; Editing by Gerald E. McCormick and Jeffrey Benkoe)