Sprint Nextel posts subscriber gain; beats Street on revenue

Sprint, the third largest carrier in the U.S. reported it had lost fewer valuable contract customers in the second quarter than Wall Street expected. Sprint list 228,000 in the monthly bill paying subscribers, which is a big decrease from the expected 335,000 from Analyst predictions.

The quarterly losses rose to $760 million, or 25 cents per share, up from $384 million, or 13 cents a share the previous year – this also included a charge of 10 cents per share for deferred tax assets. Sprint shares have risen 17 percent overall since early July and were up 2.4 percent as of today.

Sprint’s move-ahead with Android, particularly the HTC EVO 4G, touting the 4G WiMax network, provided much of the help in retaining and gaining new subscribers. In addition, Sprint focus on customer service has done a 180 from not long ago.  The everything plans have really assisted Sprint in retaining subscribers while other carriers begin to charge for data or have removed unlimited data altogether. Most notably is the everything plans Sprint offers, which is the only one in the industry which allows consumers to have unlimited calling to any mobile network with unlimited data and text messaging. Churn rates have decreased and it appears that Sprint is headed in the right direction.

[via WSJ, CNN, Daily Finance]

AT&T Reports Earnings – Wireless Growth Doing Well

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In AT&T’s earnings report released today, the company stated that it had a total 1.9 million net gain in wireless subscribers, the highest first-quarter total in the company’s history,  reaching 87.0 million; 1.07 percent postpaid churn and 1.30 percent total churn, both at best-ever company levels. There was a 10.3 percent increase in wireless service revenues, with postpaid subscriber ARPU (average monthly revenues per subscriber) up 3.9 percent; fifth consecutive quarter with a year-over-year increase in postpaid ARPU. The $0.42 diluted EPS (earnings per share), $0.59 before a previously disclosed non-cash charge (health care – see below); compares with $0.53 diluted EPS in the first quarter of 2009. Overall sales there rose 8.2 percent to $13.89 billion bringing the company’s total wireless subscriber base to 87 million. This puts AT&T hot on the heals of Verizon’s purported 91 million customers, still America’s largest network, for now. Apple assisted this growth with 2.7 million iPhone activations, with more than one-third of the activations for customers who were new to AT&T. I assume this makes the new iPhone due later this year an even better money-making machine for both Apple and AT&T this year.

Although AT&T’s first-quarter 2010 net income attributable to AT&T totaled $2.5 billion, or $0.42 per diluted share, reflecting a previously disclosed non-cash charge of $995 million, or $0.17 per diluted share, it was related to recently enacted regulation in the tax treatment for the Medicare Part D subsidy.

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