U.S. Cellular
Changing leadership at U.S. Cellular
After 10 years of extraordinary leadership, U.S. Cellular president and CEO Jack Rooney will retire this year. Jack has driven U.S. Cellular’s success through customer focus, building a strong company culture—the Dynamic Organization—committed to providing the best possible communications experience for its customers.
Under Jack’s leadership, U.S. Cellular more than doubled its revenues, becoming the sixth-largest wireless provider in the United States. On behalf of all U.S. Cellular and TDS team members, we thank Jack for his immeasurable contributions to the company, and we wish him a long and happy retirement.
U.S. Cellular, TDS’ 82-percent owned wireless subsidiary, operates on a customer satisfaction strategy, increasing customer engagement by providing a comprehensive range of wireless services and products, superior customer support and a high-quality network.
Though competition and the weak economy affected net retail customer additions, retail postpay and prepaid customers responded well to new service plans introduced midyear. At the end of 2009:
- U.S. Cellular had 6.1 million total customers, including 5.7 million retail customers; and
- 95 percent of the company’s retail customers were in its target postpay segment.
Increasing data use and smart phone sales
Customer demand for data services and applications continues to increase rapidly at U.S. Cellular, along with growing sales of smart phones and premium phones, and related data plans. In 2009:
- Data revenue per customer increased 33 percent;
- Sales of smart phones and premium phones accounted for 20 percent of total handset sales; and
- Smart phone customer ARPU was nearly two times higher than retail service ARPU.
While overall service revenues were impacted by the decrease in inbound roaming revenues mentioned earlier, data revenue growth led to increases in retail service revenue and average monthly retail service revenue per customer. We expect increases in data use and minutes of use from U.S. Cellular’s roaming partners to help stabilize inbound roaming revenues toward the latter half of 2010.
U.S. Cellular’s expanded 3G network is supporting increased data use. At the end of 2009, 75 percent of customers had access to 3G speeds; 98 percent are targeted to have 3G access by the end of 2010. The company expects to make further investments in network capacity in 2010 to support the growth in data use. U.S. Cellular is also continuing technical trials of 4G/LTE technology that began in 2009, and is beginning to develop its LTE rollout plans.
Differentiating through the customer experience
U.S. Cellular continued to build on its Believe in Something Better® marketing and brand positioning, introducing features and programs that enhance customers’ wireless experiences. Customers can exchange dead or dying batteries for fully charged batteries through U.S. Cellular’s Battery Swap program, and they can avoid overage charges by receiving text alerts when they are close to their monthly minute or message limits, through the company’s Overage Protection service.
All U.S. Cellular postpay plans include Free Incoming calls, text and picture messages, and customers can change rate plans at any time without additional charges or contract changes.
Together, these programs and services demonstrate U.S. Cellular’s commitment to continuously improving and enhancing the customer experience, and ensuring that customers can stay connected at all times.
- U.S. Cellular has received the J.D. Power and Associates award for “Highest Call Quality Performance among Wireless Cell Phone Users in the North Central Region” for nine consecutive reporting periods.
Investing for long-term growth
U.S. Cellular laid the groundwork in 2009 for major enablement initiatives that will be implemented over the next several years to:
- Enhance its point-of-sale and billing system, and enable faster development and delivery of new services and products;
- Improve customer targeting and strengthen customer relationships at every touch point through new customer relationship management and electronic data warehouse systems; and
- Increase online sales and customer self-service at uscellular.com.
U.S. Cellular expects that spending related to these multi-year initiatives will continue at significant levels over the next several years as the company moves forward with implementation.