T-Mobile USA Inc. in Irvine moved up two notches to claim the No. 1 spot in this year’s Business Journal ranking of Orange County’s largest telecom and wireless companies by headcount.
The Bellevue, Wash.-based company, which acquired Sprint Corp. as of April 1, jumped from 994 employees in 2019 to 1,637 this year. The acquisition also bumped Sprint off the list, after ranking No. 6 last year.
Orange County and the greater Los Angeles area “have been a priority market for T-Mobile—for retail and our network investments,” T-Mobile Senior Vice President Sam Sindha told the Business Journal on Aug. 19.
“As the Un-carrier, we’ll continue to solve customers’ wireless pain points and support our customers with best practices that provide the best value and service in wireless, especially as we deploy 5G and its speed and coverage benefits across Orange County,” Sindha said.
Its regional headcount numbers jumped 65% because of the addition of both Sprint and prepaid brand Metro by T-Mobile to the portfolio of retail locations and employees, the company said via email.
T-Mobile’s acquisition made up for a nearly 9% increase to 7,214 in local headcount among the 17 telecommunications and wireless companies that remained on this year’s list.
Verizon Irvine
Verizon Communications Inc. in Irvine with headquarters in New Jersey slipped one spot to second place with an estimated 1,600 employees. AT&T Communications Inc. in Tustin with headquarters in Dallas came in third with an estimated 1,150 employees.
Ten of the other 14 companies on the Business Journal’s rankings either slipped a bit in reported or estimated headcount or stayed about the same.
Charter Communications in Cypress was in fourth place, with an estimated steady number of 850 employees.
Newport Beach-based Mobilitie LLC, founded by OC entrepreneur Gary Jabara and now the largest privately held telecommunications company in the U.S., moved up one slot to No. 7 on the list in a tie with D-Link Systems of Fountain Valley. The company’s growing roster of projects include major sites in San Francisco and Los Angeles.
Mobilitie 5G
“We continue to grow rapidly not just nationwide, but also in Orange County as we continue deploying 5G infrastructure. Mobilitie Chief Executive Christos Karmis told the Business Journal last week. “In particular, we are experiencing rapid growth across our large public venues/indoor networks as well as our outdoor small cells sites that are fundamental to 5G.”
Vehicle tracking company CalAmp Corp. in Irvine also moved up one slot to No. 13 this year with a reported headcount of 110 people.
“We’re adding people every day in a couple of areas,” CalAmp CEO Jeff Gardner told the Business Journal last week. He said they include software development engineers and people with product management expertise while the sales force has also grown.
“Orange County is a great place to attract that kind of talent,” Gardner said. “I wouldn’t say we’ve totally opened the doors. We’re still being a little bit cautious. We believe in the future, and this is a time when we’ve got to continue making investments and make our software better.”
