Wolfe Research has once again turned bullish on T-Mobile following a recent bout of underperformance. Analyst Peter Supino upgraded shares of the telecommunication giant to outperform from peer perform after downgrading them in January. His $160 price target implies an upside of 26.4% over where the stock closed Wednesday. Shares rose about 0.9% in premarket trading Thursday. The stock has fallen 9.6% so far this year, an underperformance that has made Supino optimistic that the stock will have upside. “At today’s price and after ~21% YTD underperformance, investors need neither estimate nor multiple upside to outperform,” he said in a note to clients. TMUS .SPX YTD mountain T-Mobile and the S & P 500, year to date He noted that the January downgrade emphasized that industry subscriber acquisition costs and general inflation had taken most of the upside to long-term guidance, while forward valuation was risky but justifiable given limitations on the industry. The reversal puts Supino in the majority on Wall Street, with half of analysts rating the stock a buy, according to Refinitiv. Though the company simply met expectations for its first quarter, he said there’s a strong outlook for intrinsic value growth per share. That’s because of the 4% or more organic postpaid service revenue growth expected through 2024 and positive current-quarter guidance on postpaid phone net adds despite decelerations elsewhere. The $60 billion of share repurchases should also help, as should the 2023 average-revenue-per-user estimates. Despite cable winning 45% of industry net adds through aggressive postpaid phone service prices, Supino said T-Mobile’s “leading” price and value proposition put it in the best spot to get a majority of new subscribers who purchase three or more lines on an account. Supino increased his 2023 net adds forecast to 2.8 million, which he said should be helped by strong second-quarter trends and the launch of its Go5G plans. T-Mobile should be able to continue getting the bulk of Big-3 net adds given its under-index to small markets, he said. And Supino said the company should feel the last tailwinds from churn reducing among Sprint subscribers after it merged with T-Mobile. Supino added that T-Mobile should likely finish near the top end of its 7 million to 8 million range for fixed wireless access customer target in 2025. He said fixed wireless access will either see subscriptions decline years from now, or will require more capital. — CNBC’s Michael Bloom contributed to this report.
