Sprint stumbles again despite data growth

Beleaguered Sprint Nextel posted its third consecutive quarterly loss [1] as the operator reported a Q2 net loss $344 million, with mobile sales declining 12 percent to $7.74 billion on top of postpaid wireless subscriber defections totaling 776,000. Sprint Nextel now serves 51.9 million customers, compared to 54 million at the end of the second quarter of 2007--however, postpaid churn of just below 2 percent improved by over 45 basis points sequentially. Wireless service revenues of $7 billion declined 11 percent year-over-year and 2 percent over Q1 figures. Sprint blamed the year-over-year drop to diminished ARPU ($56 for the quarter) and reduced subscriber totals, with subscriber losses cited for the sequential decline.

Sprint reported that second quarter mobile data revenues contributed more than $12 to overall post-paid ARPU, led by CDMA data ARPU that increased nearly $1 from the first quarter to more than $15, accounting for approximately 27 percent of total CDMA ARPU. The operator credited the increase to consumer adoption of bundled data services like its Simply Everything plan as well as continued data card growth. Prepaid ARPU in Q2 was approximately $30, off from $31 a year ago but up from $29 in the previous quarter. Boost Unlimited subscribers were cited as a catalyst behind the sequential increase.

For more on Sprint's second quarter:
- read this release [2]

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