After declaring this week that T-Mobile US is top-dog in the US prepaid market, surpassing Sprint, CEO John Legere now reckons that beating its nearest rival on overall number of customers is on the cards.

“I predict the #uncarrier will overtake @Sprint in total customers by the end of the year! There, I said it!,” tweeted Legere.

The CEO has no doubt been encouraged by recent momentum, passing the 50 million customer mark for the first time in mid-2014. During the second quarter T-Mobile US added 1.47 million new customers, with the operator once again revising upwards its growth expectations for the full year.

The number of T-Mobile US branded postpaid customers is expected to increase by between 3 and 3.5 million in 2014, up from the 2 to 3 million forecast made at the beginning of the year.

In terms of ‘connections’ though, fourth-placed T-Mobile US has still got a bit of catching up to do with Sprint. According to figures from GSMA Intelligence, Sprint had 54.5 million connections to T-Mobile US’ 50.5 million as of 30 June.

The two operators are way behind Verizon Wireless and AT&T, which have 121.3 million and 116.6 million connections respectively.

In the prepaid market, T-Mobile US says it has 15.64 million customers compared to Sprint’s 15.19 million.

AT&T has 11.34 million prepaid customers, while Verizon Wireless has just over 6 million.