The Reston, Virginia-based company is seeking to counter the iPhone hype surrounding chief rival AT&T, and hired a new advertising agency that came up with its new Sprint Ahead campaign during the quarter.
It seems to be working: the company added 16,000 monthly subscribers during the quarter. And customer turnover rates reached 2%, the lowest level in two years and down from 2.3% in the prior quarter.
The subscriber strength was significant, given AT&T and Verizon Wireless, the number one and two US wireless carriers, had been poaching Sprint customers in recent quarters as Sprint struggled to fix network reliability and other problems.
Sprint profit fell 95% to $19m, or one cent a share, during the quarter because of merger and employee severance expenses, as expected. Excluding expenses, the company made a 25-cent profit, down from 32 cents a year ago. This beat analysts’ average forecasts of 22 cents, according to Thomson Financial. Revenue for the quarter ended June 30 rose 2% to $10.16bn compared to the same quarter last year.
Our focus remains on closing churn and customer care gaps, building on our recently-launched Sprint Ahead marketing campaign, and extending the EVDO footprint to meet strong demand for wireless data services, said Sprint chief executive Gary Forsee.
Sprint is building the country’s first nationwide WiMax network, which will cost it about $3bn. It has enlisted Google for services on its home-page portal to the network, and ClearWire to help complete its coverage. The network is Sprint’s bid to compete with AT&T and Verizon. It is slated to launch next April and go live to 100 million people by the end of next year. When completed in mid-2010, the network would be available to 300 million Americans, according to Sprint.
Sprint shares fell slightly more than 2% to close at $19.77 on the New York Stock Exchange yesterday.
