Alltel posts strong customer growth

Alltel Corp. reported a quarter of record growth, with postpaid customers more than doubling year-over-year while the company made substantial improvements in its churn rate.
Alltel added 205,000 net new customers, more then doubling the 101,000 customers it gained during the third quarter of 2006. Postpaid net additions totaled 213,000 sunscribers, the company reported. Revenues jumped 14% to $2.3 billion for the quarter, with net income of $283 million. The carrier continued to improve its churn rate, with postpaid churn at 1.31%-down from 1.67% in the third quarter of 2006-and total churn at 1.9%, down from 2.18%. The company said it was the seventh consecutive quarter of year-over-year improvements in churn.
Alltel ended the quarter with about 12.1 million customers.
Alltel’s average revenue per user was up 4% from the same period of 2006, to $55.96. Data ARPU jumped 70% year-over-year and 13% from the second quarter of 2007, to $6.36.
The company said that it expects its purchase by TPG Capital and Goldman Sachs to close by the end of the year. The transaction is awaiting approval from the Federal Communications Commission, and the carrier said that it expects a favorable FCC vote soon.