Western Wireless Corp. reported strong third-quarter year-over-year customer growth and improved total revenues for its domestic wireless operations bolstered by increases in average revenue per user and a decrease in customer churn that were offset by a drop in net income and roaming revenues.
The regional wireless operator posted $260.6 million in total domestic revenues during the third quarter of this year compared with $228.5 million during the third quarter of 2002. The revenue growth was mostly attributed to Western Wireless’ subscriber revenue as the carrier’s roaming revenues dropped from $61.5 million last year to $61.1 million this year.
Domestic net income dropped from $8.9 million last year to $4.5 million this year, and with the addition of Western Wireless’ international operations, net losses increased from $14.7 million last year, a loss of 19 cents per share, to $18.5 million this year, a loss of 23 cents per share.
Western Wireless reported a strong increase in ARPU from $44.48 during the third quarter of 2002 to $50.35 this year, and a drop in cost per gross addition from $402 last year to $391 during the third quarter of this year.
While the carrier posted mixed financial results, Western Wireless reported a 5.9-percent year-over-year increase in net customer additions to 21,000 subscribers during the quarter, which was ahead of analysts’ estimates of between 15,000 and 20,000 net customer additions. Customer growth was helped by a slight drop in churn from 2.5 percent during the third quarter of last year to 2.4 percent this year, which was in line with analysts’ estimates.
