Just one phone? No, T-Mobile bets you'll get more

Published Thu, Jul 31 2014 2:04 PM EDTUpdated Thu, Jul 31 2014 2:12 PM EDT

Drew Sandholm

Think long and hard and you, too, will remember a time when (gasp) cellphones didn't even exist.

Today, you'll be hard pressed not to see someone texting in line at the grocery store, playing "Clash of Clans" on the subway, or walking down the street while talking on their Bluetooth. Heck, you're probably reading this very article on your phone.

But T-Mobile CEO John Legere told CNBC on Thursday that people will soon own not just one, but several mobile devices.

"Everybody will have multiple devices. Most people have more than one cellphone ... a tablet, wearable devices," Legere said on "Squawk on the Street." He said the future of wireless growth will come from charging customers for multiple devices on the same plan.

Legere credited this shift in mobile trends to T-Mobile's stellar growth in the second quarter. The wireless provider on Thursday posted its first net profit in a year, raised its forecasts for subscriber growth and reported the most postpaid phone subscriber additions in the industry.

Last year T-Mobile turned around years of subscriber losses through campaigns that have eliminated contracts, restructured pricing plans and sparked price slashing across the industry.

T-Mobile added 1.5 million net customers in the second quarter and 102,000 net prepaid subscribers, compared to prepaid subscriber losses for the top four wireless carriers.

"There is a lot of activity happening between carriers. There is a possibility for a large switching pool. We had a 30 percent increase in gross ads year over year so this is a healthy, growing industry," he said.

In fact, despite reports of discussions with Sprint regarding a possible sale, T-Mobile might be doing so well that it may not sell out. After all, T-Mobile could soon pass Sprint in terms of postpaid subscriptions.

"Of course we'll pass them. Just look at the momentum. In the past 24 hours, you've clearly seen a dramatically different performance on two companies," Legere said.

"The business organically is doing extremely well and qualitatively, short- and medium-term, T-Mobile can be highly successful. We've always said in the long-term, scale is extremely important," he said. "But we have multiple options to create long-term scale for this company, one of which has been long rumored and you know, is one possibility for the business."

—By CNBC's Drew Sandholm, with Reuters.

View the full site