AT&T Wireless Services Inc. reported 446,000 net customer additions during the recently completed second quarter, which was well ahead of analysts estimates of around 300,000 net customer additions and surpassed the 417,000 subscribers the carrier acquired during the second quarter of 2002.
Analysts attributed a portion of the better-than-expected customer growth to AT&T Wireless’ recently launched GoPhone prepaid service, which has allowed the carrier to add customers who would normally not pass its postpaid credit checks.
Further fueling AT&T Wireless’ strong customer growth was a drop in customer churn from 2.4 percent during the second quarter of 2002 to 2.2 percent this year.
AT&T Wireless also reported steady average revenue per user of $60.60 during the second quarter of this year, compared with the $60.40 the carrier posted last year and a slight drop in the cost per gross addition from $383 last year to $379 this year.
Company revenues increased more than 6 percent from $3.9 billion during the second quarter of 2002 to $4.2 billion this year, which was slightly ahead of analysts’ predictions of approximately $4.1 billion in revenues. Net income also increased from $19 million last year, a return of 1 cent per share, to $222 million this year, a return of 8 cents per share.
AT&T Wireless added that capital expenditures dropped more than 37 percent during the quarter to $542 million compared with last year, and it expects to reach positive operating free cash flow for 2003.
