As Customers Defect To Rival Carriers, Sprint’s Loss Expands

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As Customers Defect To Rival Carriers, Sprint’s Loss Expands

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Sprint (NYSE: S) customers continue to flock to rivals like AT&T (NYSE: T), which has added more customers thanks to its exclusive relationship with Apple’s iPhone. That helped widen Sprint’s Q3 loss to $478 million from last year’s $384 million. Revenues fell as well, dropping more than 8 percent, as the recession also put downward pressure on its business. In all, Sprint lost a total of 135,000 net retail subscribers in the quarter. The Overland Park, Kansas-based carrier has tried to strike deals with other device makers and software providers, like the Palm Pre and Google’s Android, but so far, those efforts have come up short.

Earnings release | Webcast (8:00 AM EDT)

	2Q 2009	2Q 2008
EPS	-$0.17	-$0.13
Net Income	-$478M	-$384M
Revenue	$8.04B	$8.14B

Citing the economy and greater competition, Sprint said that post-paid churn in the quarter was 2.17 percent compared to 2.15 percent. Things were a little better when it came to prepaid churn, though, which was 6.65 percent in Q3, versus last year’s 8.16 percent.

Looking ahead, the company says post-paid and total subscriber full-year losses should improve this year, but it didn’t offer any specifics.

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By David Kaplan