Sprint increased mobile customers numbers and narrowed its losses during its fiscal third quarter. CEO Michel Combes said that in this period of “uncertainty,” he continues to believe the merger with T-Mobile is the best way to “deliver the benefits of competition to American consumers.”
Revenues for the quarter went to USD 8.080 billion, lower than the 8.601 billion recorded the year before but higher than the 7.795 billion put out in the second quarter. The net loss narrowed to USD 120 million from a loss of 145 million the year before and the loss of 279 million quarter-on-quarter. The adjusted EBITDA fell to USD 2.548 billion from 3.101 billion year-on-year, but was stable from the previous quarter’s 2.554 billion.
Wireless service revenue went to USD 5.2 billion from 5.0 billion in the previous quarter, with postpaid wireless service revenues, postpaid phone average ARPU and postpaid average ARPU stable sequentially and year-on-year, at USD 4.2 billion, USD 50.37, USD 124.80 respectively. Sprint said the numbers were boosted by the company’s continued focus on promoting its feature-rich Unlimited Plus and Unlimited Premium plans, selling additional data devices, and being more selective in its acquisition of postpaid phone customers.
Sprint gained a net 249,000 mobile customers in the quarter, compared to 396,000 worth of losses in the previous quarter and gains of 48,000 the year before. The number of postpaid customers rose by a strong 494,000, against gains of 273,000 in Q2 and of 309,000 year-on-year. At Prepaid, losses went to 174,000, narrower than the 207,000 in losses in the previous quarter and almost flat from the year before’s 173,000 worth of losses.
Sprint had a total of 54.165 million connections at the end of Q3, against 53.916 million at the end of Q2 and 54.495 million the year earlier.
