Data revenues up, but Sprint profits tumble

While Sprint reported a sharp decline in second quarter profits, a fall the carrier blamed on weaker operating earnings, start-up costs from its WiMAX initiative and higher merger costs, its total wireless revenues rose 3.1 percent to $8.79 billion, galvanized in part by total data service revenues that increased 40 percent compared to the year-ago period and 4 percent sequentially. Sprint reported Q2 net income of $19 million, or a penny a share, compared with net income of $370 million, or 10 cents a share, a year earlier. During the quarter Sprint gained 16,000 post-paid customers, with total subscriber numbers growing 5 percent from the year-ago period to 54 million.

Sprint reported post-paid Q2 ARPU of more than $60, an annual decline of more than 2 percent but an improvement over the 5 percent year-over-year drop reported in the first quarter. CDMA ARPU increased from the year-ago period while iDEN ARPU declined:  Data contributed approximately $9.75, or 16 percent, of Sprint's overall post-paid ARPU in the quarter, with data ARPU on the CDMA platform amounting to approximately $12.75. Sprint also reported promising initial sales of the Samsung Upstage handset/MP3 player, while crediting the Samsung M300 and Sanyo Katana devices for increasing sales of Vision-capable devices to 95 percent of CDMA additions for the quarter.

For more on Sprint's Q2 earnings:
- read this release

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