Metro PCS 2011 Annual Report Download - page 45

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• our ability to achieve projected penetration rates in the various metropolitan areas due to market saturation or
competition;
• our ability to reach suitable roaming agreements or reasonable roaming rates with desired roaming partners;
• our ability to manage the rate of voice minutes and data usage;
• unfavorable United States economic conditions, which may have a disproportionately negative impact on certain
portions of our customer base including an impact on their ability to buy new handsets or pay for our services;
• changes in the demographics of our markets; and
• adverse changes in the legislative and regulatory environment that may limit our ability to differentiate our services or
grow our customer base.
If we are unable to grow our customer base at the levels we project, or achieve the aggregate levels of customer penetration
that we currently believe are possible with our business model, it could limit our ability to achieve additional economies of
scale, and to repay our indebtedness, which could have a material adverse impact on our business, financial condition and
operating results.
Our business is seasonal and our operating results for future periods will be affected negatively if we fail to have strong
customer growth in the first and fourth quarters.
Our customer activity is influenced by seasonal effects related to traditional retail selling periods and other factors that arise
from our target customer base. Based on historical results, we generally expect the net customer additions to be strongest in the
first and fourth quarters. Softening of sales and increased customer turnover, or churn, in the second and third calendar quarters
of the year usually combine to result in fewer net customer additions. However, sales activity and churn can be strongly
affected by the launch of new and surrounding metropolitan areas, by the introduction of new price plans, by promotional
activity, by competition in the industry, and by existing economic conditions, all of which can reduce or outweigh certain
seasonal effects. If we fail to meet our expectations for customer additions in the first or fourth quarter, it could have a material
adverse impact on our business, financial condition and operating results for future periods.
Failing to manage our churn rate or experiencing a higher rate of customer turnover than we have forecasted could
adversely affect our business, financial condition and operating results.
Our customers do not have long-term contracts and can discontinue their service at any time without penalty or advance
notice to us. Our rate of customer churn can be affected by a number of factors, including, but not limited to, the following:
• network issues, including network coverage, network reliability, technology upgrades, data speeds, network capacity,
network technology, network responsiveness, network congestion and network availability;
• poor call quality, lack of in-building coverage and dropped and blocked calls;
• limitations in our customer service, billing and other systems;
• geographic coverage, including roaming coverage, for all our services, including 4G LTE, at affordable rates, which
has historically been less extensive than our competitors;
• affordability and unfavorable United States economic conditions, which may have a disproportionately negative
impact on certain portions of our customer base including an impact on their ability to buy new handsets or pay for our
services;
• supplier or vendor failures;
• customer perceptions of, demand for, and our prices for, our products, services, content, applications and offerings;
• customer care concerns, including reliance on automated customer service solutions that do not provide customers
with the personal attention they desire;
• our ability to differentiate our products and services from our competitors;
• our ability to offer products including smartphones, tablets, connected devices, services, content, applications and data
services, with features, applications, content, and operating systems, that our customers expect, want or demand;
• our rate of growth;
• our rate plans, distribution model, and incentives to our direct dealers and agents;