Sprint Nextel Posts Quarterly Loss of $1.3 Billion Despite Improving Revenues

Published on: 7th Feb 2013

­USA based Sprint Nextel has reported fourth-quarter revenues that rose slightly to US$9 billion, compared to US$8.7 billion a year earlier, while the next loss was flat at US$1.3 billion.

Sprint's fourth quarter 2012 results include accelerated depreciation of approximately $400 million primarily related to Network Vision, including the expected shutdown of the Nextel platform, and $45 million related to impacts from Hurricane Sandy.

For the full year 2012, revenues rose  to US$35.5 billion from US$33.7 billion in 2011, but the net loss deepened to US$4.3 billion compared to US$2.9 billion in 2011.

The Sprint platform postpaid subscriber base grew for the eleventh consecutive quarter, with net additions of 401,000 driven by a postpaid Nextel recapture rate of 51 percent, or 333,000 subscribers, and strong LTE smartphone sales. Sprint platform prepaid net additions equaled 525,000 due in part to the best ever quarterly prepaid Nextel recapture rate of 50 percent, or 188,000 subscribers.

Sprint sold approximately 2.2 million iPhones in the fourth quarter with 38 percent purchased by new customers. As of the end of the fourth quarter, Sprint had sold more than 4 million LTE smartphones.

"Sprint's strong performance was fueled by record wireless service revenue on the Sprint platform due to year-over-year postpaid ARPU growth and Sprint platform net additions," said Dan Hesse, Sprint CEO. "As a result, quarterly Adjusted OIBDA performance improved year-over-year in spite of significant cost increases related to Network Vision and the iPhone, both of which are key investments for our business that we expect will improve the customer experience and lead to growth in the years ahead."

Sprint continues to make progress on its Network Vision deployment. The number of sites that are either ready for construction or already underway has grown to more than 19,500 -- approximately half the total number of sites to be upgraded. To date more than 8,000 sites are on air and meeting speed and coverage enhancement targets. Recent weekly construction starts are up 56 percent from the third quarter. Sprint continues to expect to have 12,000 sites on air by the end of the first quarter of 2013.

The company ended the year with debt of US$16.1 billion.

 

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