KANSAS CITY, Mo.-Sprint Corp. released second-quarter earnings results for the period ended June 30, reporting a $1.25 loss per share and subscriber additions of 617,000 in its Sprint PCS Group.
The loss per share was slightly less than analysts’ expectations of $1.28 per share. Sprint PCS’s customer base tripled in the last 12 months and increased by 50 percent from the beginning of the year, to a total base of almost 4 million. Looking forward, the company expects to end the year with a total of 3 million new customers.
Average monthly revenue per user was $54. Total revenues were $736 million, a 22-percent increase from the first quarter and much more than the $265 million reported after last year’s second quarter. Sprint PCS President Andrew Sukawaty said service revenues represented 80 percent of overall revenue.
The company posted an operating cash flow loss of $338 million, adding it expects to break even next year on earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization.
Capital expenditures were $450 million, mostly spent on network buildout, Sukawaty said. Sprint expects to spend $1 billion on its network expansion effort by the end of the year.
Churn was reported as in the mid 3-percent range. Sukawaty said he expects the deployment of customer retention teams, customer loyalty initiatives and increased coverage to result in churn reaching the low 3-percent range by the end of the year.
Sukawaty pointed to wireless data initiatives playing a key role for the future, naming Sprint’s agreement with Yahoo! for information services and Internet access as one step made toward that end.
Sprint also introduced the Nokia 6165 Web-enabled phone during the quarter and expanded its contract with Qualcomm Inc. for other Web-enabled phones.
Sprint PCS’s parent company, Sprint Corp., reported net income rose to $386 million, or 44 cents per share, compared with $364 million, or 41 cents per share, during the second quarter last year.
