Revenue and Margin Generation
Last year we achieved solid customer growth in all areas, increasing our service revenues by 23 percent over 2007. Our substantial revenue growth was driven largely by higher penetration in our existing business. We also grew revenues as we built momentum with our industry-leading, unlimited Cricket Broadband service and launched new markets.
Even more significantly, we improved our operating margins in our existing business by proactively leveraging our low-cost structure. As a result, we achieved attractive margins, even with a slightly lower average revenue per user of $43.52 when compared to $44.92 in 2007, due to the popularity of our more affordable service plans and offerings.
With focused cost control emphasizing productivity, we kept our cash costs per user to $21.18 in 2008, compared to $20.84 in 2007. Meanwhile, our cost per gross addition was $186 for the year compared to $180 in 2007, reflecting our investment in new product launches and offset by lower handset subsidies, distribution and costs.
Especially notable was the performance of our existing business. We finished launching our Auction 58 markets in 2007, and last year our existing business generated adjusted OIBDA of $586 million, up 49 percent in a single year.
We see an even bigger opportunity to generate positive cash flow with the markets we acquired in Auction 66. Last year we launched the first of these markets in Oklahoma City, OK; South Texas; Las Vegas, NV; St. Louis, MO.; Savannah, GA; and Milwaukee, WI. In the first quarter of 2009, we and our joint venture partner brought our Cricket product portfolio to Chicago and Philadelphia. We expect to launch service in Baltimore and Washington D.C. by the middle of 2009 bringing our total covered POPs to over 90 million.