In the third quarter, U.S. mobile operators added a net total of only 2.4 million subscribers, the lowest growth quarter since the cellular industry took off in the 1990s, according to a new mobile data market report from Chetan Sharma Consulting. The high mobile penetration levels that have left many western European and east Asian wireless markets in states of stagnation are now making their way to the U.S.

While 2.4 million new customers does constitute growth, Sharma pointed out that 2 million of those new accounts were prepaid, which typically bring in a third to half the revenues of a contract customer. What’s more, most of the growth in contract customers came from a single provider, Verizon Wireless (s vz)(s vod), which accounted for 2.4 million new postpaid customers. AT&T(s t) added only 400,000(s s) while Sprint(s s) and T-Mobile lost a 1 million each. So while…