Clearwire sees subscriptions skyrocket, improving financials

It hasn’t been an easy recession for Clearwire, but on Wednesday, the firm heartened investors with news of the firm’s biggest quarter yet in terms of new subscribers, revenues up 72% and expansion plans into more markets.
The firm said it counted total ending subscribers numbering 971,000, which is up 94% year on year, with total new subscriber additions reaching 283,000 for the quarter – more than the whole of 2009 combined.
The total number of Clear brand subscribers added in Q1 sits at 172,000, while the total amount of wholesale (Comcast, Sprint, Time-Warner Cable) subscribers added in Q1 reached 111,000.
Clearwire boasted it had seen its subscriber base triple in Q1 of 2010, a fact reflected in the bumper $107 Million of revenue also announced this quarter and up 72% from the same time last year.
Some 50 million people are now allegedly covered by Clearwire’s networks, with the company emphasizing it would be expanding into additional markets over the coming months.
Interestingly, a full third of current Clearwire subscribers don’t live in markets where WiMAX is currently available, but are holding on to their hybrid 3G/4G devices just in case.
Recently Clearwire expanded its 4G mobile broadband network service area to five new markets covering nearly five million people, including Houston, TX in March, and earlier this week in Harrisburg, Reading, Lancaster and York, PA.
The firm says it is also ready to roll-out 4G mobile broadband service in 19 additional cities this summer. These include Kansas City, KS; St. Louis, MO; Salt Lake City, UT, and the core area of Washington, D.C. and newly announced markets Nashville, TN; Daytona, Orlando and Tampa, FL; Rochester and Syracuse, NY; Merced, Modesto, Stockton, and Visalia, CA; Wilmington, DE; Grand Rapids, MI; Eugene, OR; and Yakima and Tri-Cities, WA.
In the latter half of the year New York City, Los Angeles, Boston, Denver, Minneapolis, the San Francisco Bay Area, Miami, Cincinnati, Cleveland and Pittsburgh will be added to Clearwire’s 4G network list.
Clearwire also announced it would launch two new 4GWiMAX/3G/Wi-Fi phones before the end of this year, one from Samsung and one from HTC.