By Telecom Lead Team:
American wireless major Sprint has reported 3 percent increase in 2011 income
at $33.67 billion against $32.56 billion in 2010.
In Q4 2011, Sprint’s income
grew 5 percent to $8.7 billion from $8.3 billion in Q4 2010.
Net loss for full year 2011
was $2.89 billion against $3.46 billion. In Q4 2011, net loss was $1.3 billion
compared with $929 million in Q4 2010.
The company increased Capex
by 48 percent to $2.85 billion in 2011 from $1.92 billion in the previous year.
Capex in Q4 2011 was $900 million, growing at 48 percent from $608 million in
Q4 2010.
In the fourth quarter, the
company completed field integration testing and launched the first multi-mode
base station and first cluster of cell sites, validating improved 3G data
performance metrics, such as voice quality, call drops and blocks and improved
data speeds.
The company expects to bring
approximately 12,000 sites on air by the end of 2012 and to complete the
majority of its Network Vision roll-out in 2013. In addition, as part of
Network Vision Sprint has announced it expects to begin launching 4G LTE by
mid-year 2012. In addition to Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and Atlanta, Sprint
today announced Kansas City and Baltimore will be among the initial six major
cities to launch.
Wireless
service revenues in Q4 increased more than 7 percent, driven by Sprint platform
postpaid ARPU growth of $3.69.
Strong
revenue growth and cost management partially offset the impact of increased
equipment net subsidies and sales expense associated with the launch of the
iPhone.
Forty
percent of Sprint’s 1.8 million iPhone sales in the fourth quarter were to new
customers.
The company
reported total net subscriber additions of 1.6 million in Q4 2011. Total
postpaid net additions of 161,000 in Q4 represent the tenth consecutive quarter
of year-over-year improvement and were driven by continued strength of the
Sprint platform, which had net postpaid additions of 539,000.
Our strong
fourth quarter performance illustrates the power of matching iconic devices
like the iPhone with our simple, unlimited plans and industry-leading customer
experience. During the past year, Sprint added more than 5 million net new
customers and grew wireless service revenue by more than 5 percent, including
17 percent for the Sprint platform. This momentum gives us confidence as we
execute our Network Vision upgrade and 4G LTE roll-out,” said Dan Hesse, Sprint CEO.
The company served more than
55 million customers at the end of the fourth quarter of 2011. This includes 33
million postpaid subscribers (28.7 million on the Sprint platform and 4.3
million on the Nextel platform), 14.8 million prepaid subscribers (12.8 million
on the Sprint platform and 2 million on the Nextel platform) and
approximately 7.2 million wholesale and affiliate subscribers, all of whom
utilize the Sprint platform.
Wireless retail service
revenues of $6.9 billion in Q4 2011 represent an increase of more than 7
percent compared to Q4 2010. The quarterly year-over-year improvement was
primarily due to higher postpaid ARPU as well as an increased number of net
prepaid subscribers as a result of additional market launches of Assurance
Wireless and growth of the Virgin Mobile brand, partially offset by lower
prepaid ARPU.
Wireless postpaid ARPU
increased from $55.26 to $58.59. ARPU benefited from higher monthly recurring
revenues primarily as a result of the premium data add-on charges for
smartphones.
Prepaid ARPU of $26.62 for
the quarter declined from $27.95 in the fourth quarter of 2010 and from $27.19
in the third quarter of 2011. The decline in both year-over-year and sequential
periods is a result of a greater mix of Assurance Wireless customers who on
average have lower ARPU than the remainder of our prepaid subscriber base,
partially offset by improvements in Boost ARPU.
