American wireless carrier Sprint said its Capex (capital investment) for fourth quarter ending March 31, 2015 will be higher than the same quarter last year.
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“We expect Capex in the March quarter to be slightly up compared to the same quarter last year excluding the impacts of leasing. We planned to provide full year guidance for fiscal 2015 on next quarters call,” said Sprint during its earnings call.
Sprint did not share specific details.
In the third quarter, Sprint, which is owned by SoftBank of Japan, has invested $1.8 billion which is slightly down year-over-year, but up approximately $300 million sequentially.
Sprint as invested $1.6 billion in wireless infrastructure, which was up approximately $250 million sequentially but down a $100 million year-over-year. The telecom company said the 2.5 gigahertz is less capital intensive.
“Our network performance continues to improve, and we are now focused on a strategy that will unlock the true potential of our spectrum assets,” said Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure.
During the third quarter, Sprint’s 800 MHz voice deployment reached nationwide availability, 4G LTE coverage expanded to cover 270 million people, and the 2.5 GHz 4G LTE deployment now covers 125 million people.
Sprint added 967,000 users compared to 590,000 in the prior quarter and 682,000 in the prior year quarter. Sprint had 55.9 million total connections at the end of the quarter. The addition was a result of special offers from Sprint which tried to take on AT&T and Verizon.
The company reported operating revenues of $9 billion, an operating loss of $2.5 billion in the third fiscal quarter of 2014.
Baburajan K
editor@telecomlead.com
