U.S. Cellular reports delayed Q4 results: Net adds down, ARPU up

U.S. Cellular Corp. reported late Friday that it added 55,000 customers to its network during the final three months of 2007, and 301,000 customers for the year, to push its total customer base to just over 6.1 million subscribers at the end of last year. The quarterly growth, which was a 36% drop from the fourth quarter of 2006, included the addition of 70,000 postpaid customers that was offset by the loss of 6,000 prepaid customers and 9,000 customers from resellers.
The carrier added that postpaid customer churn remained steady year-over-year at 1.5%. Average revenue per user increased from $48.15 during the fourth quarter of 2006 to $52.46 in 2007.
The solid ARPU growth helped push U.S. Cellular’s revenues up more than 13% to $1.024 billion for the fourth quarter. The increase was offset by increased operational expenses, including a $20.8 million pre-tax charge on a spectrum exchange with Sprint Nextel Corp., which dropped net income during the fourth quarter from $54.1 million in 2006 to $29.2 million last year.
For the year total revenues increased 13.6% to $3.9 billion, while net income jumped more than 75% to $314.7 million.
U.S. Cellular, which has a history of missing filing deadlines, noted earlier last week that it was delaying the release of its Q4 results due to additional time required to complete a review of its results.
U.S. Cellular’s stock was trading down more than 7% early Monday at $58.27 per share.