ATLANTA (AP)--Cingular Wireless said Thursday it more than tripled its third-quarter profits.
The Atlanta joint venture of BellSouth and AT&T said it earned a record $847 million profit for the quarter, up from $222 million for the same period a year ago.
Revenue in the quarter rose to $9.55 billion from $8.75 billion last year.
For the first nine months of the year, Cingular said it earned $1.74 billion, up from $129 million in the same period a year ago. Nine-month revenue rose 8.5% to $27.75 billion from $25.58 billion.
Cingular's name will likely be phased out with the completion of AT&T's $79.3 billion acquisition of Atlanta-based BellSouth, which is expected to close by the end of the year.
The deal was approved by the Justice Department earlier this month, but a vote on the buyout by the Federal Communications Commission was delayed until Nov. 3 after two Democrats asked for time to study last-minute concessions offered by the companies.
In the third quarter, Cingular reported postpaid churn of 1.5%, equal to the company's best-ever results. This is a year-over-year improvement of 50 basis points and flat compared to the second quarter of 2006.
Overall monthly subscriber churn was 1.8%, which represents a year-over-year improvement of 50 basis points and a sequential increase of 10 basis points.
Cingular recorded 1.4 million net subscriber adds in the third quarter.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires "
Posted to the site on 19th October 2006
Posted to: www.cellular-news.com/story/19937.php