Sprint Corporation, the fourth largest telecom operator in the US, announced its revenue, profit, EBITDA and ARPU for Q3 2018.
The SoftBank-subsidiary has reported revenue of $8.433 billion in Q3 2018 against $7.927 billion in Q3 2017. Sprint said the year-over-year growth in wireless service revenue is for the first time in nearly five years.
Sprint CEO Michel Combes said: “Our strategy of balancing growth and profitability while we increase network investments and add digital capabilities continues to drive solid financial results.”
Sprint added 109,000 subscribers during the quarter against 168,000 new subscribers at the same time last year.
T-Mobile, the third largest telecom operator in US, has added 774,000 phone subscribers against 595,000 in the same quarter last year.
Verizon, the largest U.S. carrier, added 295,000 phone subscribers during the third quarter of 2018.
AT&T, the second largest telecom operator, gained 69,000 phone customers.
The telecom operator reported post-paid ARPU of $43.99 in Q3 2018 as against $46.0 in Q3 2017 and pre-paid ARPU of $35.40 in Q3 2018 as compared with $37.83 in Q3 2017.
Sprint posted net income of $199 million in Q3 2018 against $48 million net loss in Q3 2017.
The company has reported approximately $200 million of combined year-over-year reductions in cost of services and selling, general and administrative expenses in the first half of fiscal 2018.
Sprint aims to deliver gross reductions of more than $1 billion for the full fiscal year — for the fifth consecutive year,
Sprint Capex
Sprint’s network investments, or cash capital expenditures (Capex) excluding leased devices, nearly doubled.
Sprint said it completed tri-band upgrades and has deployed 2.5 GHz spectrum on 70 percent of its macro sites.
Sprint added new outdoor small cells and currently has 21,000 deployed including both mini macros and strand mounts.
Sprint invested in Massive MIMO radios paving the way for providing 5G mobile service in the first half of 2019.
Sprint going digital
Sprint said its post-paid gross additions in digital channels increased nearly 60 percent year-over-year due to its investment in digital capabilities.
Sprint said nearly 20 percent of post-paid upgrades were in digital channels in the third quarter of 2018.
Sprint said more than 25 percent of all Sprint customer care chats are now performed by virtual agents using artificial intelligence.
The company is increasing its expectation for adjusted EBITDA to $12.4-$12.7 billion. The previous expectation was $12-$12.5 billion.
The company expects capital expenditures excluding leased devices to be $5-$5.5 billion in 2018. Sprint was aiming to spend $5-$6 billion towards Capex in 2018. Sprint did not reveal reasons for slashing Capex.
