Telecom Lead America: Sprint Nextel has posted operating
income of $8.8 billion in the second quarter of 2012 against $8.3 billion in the
same period last year.
Sprint Nextel’s net loss increased to $1.4 billion from
$847 million.
The company reported wireless service revenues of $7.3
billion during the quarter, an increase of more than 8 percent year-over-year,
driven primarily by Sprint platform postpaid ARPU growth of $4.31.
Sprint platform postpaid net additions of 442,000
improved by 68 percent sequentially driven by best ever quarterly churn
performance of 1.69 percent, a Nextel postpaid recapture rate of 60 percent and
the continued strength of iPhone sales. Sprint recorded nearly 1.5 million
iPhone sales in the second quarter with 40 percent going to new postpaid
customers.
The Sprint platform achieved best ever postpaid ARPU and
customer churn that, combined with disciplined customer acquisition and cost
management, contributed to our Adjusted OIBDA* of $1.45 billion,” said Dan
Hesse, Sprint CEO.
Based on this performance, Sprint is raising the 2012
Adjusted OIBDA forecast to between $4.5 billion and $4.6 billion.
Sprint has taken 9,600 Nextel sites off air to date. The
company has completed leasing agreements for more than 12,700 Network Vision
sites and zoning requirements are completed for nearly 13,900 sites. In
addition, nearly 6,300 sites are either ready for construction or already
underway and more than 2,000 sites are on air and meeting speed and coverage
enhancement targets. Sprint expects to bring 12,000 sites on air by the end of
2012 and to complete the majority of its Network Vision roll-out by the end of
2013.
As part of Network Vision, Sprint launched 4G LTE in five
major markets and 15 cities on July 15 including Houston, Dallas, San Antonio,
Atlanta and Kansas City. Sprint launched its first four 4G LTE smartphones
during the second quarter – Galaxy Nexus, LG Viper 4G LTE, HTC EVO 4G LTE and
Samsung Galaxy S III. Sprint also expanded the coverage area of its Sprint
Direct Connect push-to-talk service with the addition of roaming and Sprint
1xRTT coverage areas.
