http://newsreleases.sprint.com/phoe...room&ID=1348150

Sprint Nextel Reports Third Quarter 2009 Results

Free Cash Flow* of approximately $660 million after a $200 million pension contribution

Achieved best net retail subscriber results in more than two years, driven by sequential improvement in both post-paid and prepaid gross subscriber additions

Launched industry-leading Any Mobile, AnytimeSM calling feature to eliminate mobile calling circles

Seven consecutive quarters of improvement in Customer Care Satisfaction and First Call Resolution

Extended 4G leadership into seventeen markets

The company’s third quarter earnings conference call will be held at 8 a.m. EDT today. Participants may dial 800-938-1120 in the U.S. or Canada (706-634-7849 internationally) and provide the following ID: 29897906, or may listen via the Internet at www.sprint.com/investor.

OVERLAND PARK, Kan.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 29, 2009-- Sprint Nextel Corp. (NYSE: S) today reported third quarter 2009 financial results that included consolidated net operating revenues of $8.0 billion, a net loss of $478 million and a diluted loss per share of 17 cents. The company generated Free Cash Flow* of $664 million in the quarter and $2.1 billion year-to-date in 2009. As of September 30, 2009, the company had $5.9 billion in cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments and $1.6 billion in borrowing capacity available under its revolving bank credit facility, for total liquidity of $7.5 billion.

Sprint lost a total of 135,000 net retail subscribers in the quarter. The company’s year-over-year post-paid gross addition improvement was the best in Sprint Nextel history, and the sequential improvement was the best in more than five years. Net post-paid subscriber losses have improved by approximately 20 percent in each of the second and third quarters of 2009.

“Sprint achieved its best net retail subscriber results in more than two years and improvement in both post-paid and prepaid gross subscriber additions in the third quarter,” said Dan Hesse, Sprint Nextel CEO. “Sprint is beginning to attract more customers with the industry’s best device line-up and the clarity and simplicity of our offers, seven sequential quarters of improvement in customer care satisfaction, a network declared to be most reliable by PC World magazine, and recognition from Newsweek magazine which ranked Sprint 15th of 500 companies on its 2009 Green Ratings list -- the only telecom company in the Top 100.

“The company again generated strong cash flow, and while Operating Income Before Depreciation and Amortization* (OIBDA) was impacted by costs associated with growth in customer additions, previous quarters’ subscriber losses and certain seasonal costs in the quarter, Sprint continues to manage costs rigorously. We expect to see sequential quarterly improvement in both post-paid and total net subscriber losses in the fourth quarter of 2009,” Hesse said.

In 2009 Sprint has launched or announced 16 new touch, QWERTY and smart devices with a full selection of operating systems. They include Palm® Pre™ and Palm® Pixi™, Blackberry® Tour™; HTC Hero™ and Samsung Moment™ -- which are both based on Google’s Android™ platform; HTC Touch Pro 2, Samsung Instinct® HD, and Samsung IntrepidTM, which offers the new Windows Mobile® 6.5 Professional operating system. In addition, Sprint launched the nation’s first full-featured, eco-friendly phone, Samsung Reclaim™ which earlier this month was given the “Hottest in Show” award at the CTIA Convention in San Diego.

Additionally, Sprint 4G is now available in 17 markets, including Philadelphia, PA, which launched earlier this week. Sprint 4G coverage should serve a population of more than 30 million people by the end of 2009, and cover a population of up to 120 million people in about 80 markets by the end of 2010. Sprint 4G service is planned for deployment in these additional markets in 2009: Austin, TX; Charlotte, NC; Chicago, IL; Dallas/Ft. Worth, TX; Greensboro, NC; Honolulu, HI; Maui, HI; Raleigh, NC; San Antonio, TX; and Seattle, WA.

Wireless Customers

The company served 48.3 million customers at the end of the third quarter of 2009, compared to 48.8 million at the end of the second quarter of 2009. This includes 33.6 million post-paid subscribers (25.0 million on CDMA, 7.8 million on iDEN, and 870,000 Power Source users who utilize both networks), 5.7 million prepaid subscribers (5.2 million on iDEN and 500,000 on CDMA) and 8.9 million wholesale and affiliate subscribers, all of whom utilize our CDMA network.
For the quarter, net retail subscribers declined by a total of 135,000 and net wireless customers declined by approximately 545,000, including net losses of 801,000 post-paid customers – comprising 271,000 CDMA and 530,000 iDEN customers (including a net 64,000 customers who transferred from the iDEN network to the CDMA network). The company gained a net 801,000 prepaid iDEN customers, offset by net losses of 135,000 prepaid CDMA customers. The company also experienced a net loss of 410,000 wholesale and affiliate subscribers as a result of subscriber losses from our mobile virtual network operators and deactivation of open machine-to-machine devices that had been activated in the second quarter but may not be utilized.
The credit quality of our post-paid customers reached the company’s highest historical level of almost 85% prime and improved year-over-year from 83% at the end of the third quarter of 2008.
More than 9% of post-paid customers upgraded their handsets during the third quarter, a slight increase sequentially, resulting in increased contract renewals.
During the third quarter, the company added to its device line-up with the Blackberry® Tour™, Samsung Reclaim™, HTC Touch Pro 2 and Samsung Instinct® HD. In addition, Sprint launched HTC Hero™, Samsung Intrepid and Motorola Debut™ in October, with Samsung Moment™ and Palm® Pixi™ also planned for availability before the holidays.

Wireless Churn

Post-paid churn in the quarter was 2.17% compared to 2.15% in the year-ago period and 2.05% in the second quarter of 2009. The sequential increase is due to seasonality and heightened competition.
Prepaid churn in the third quarter of 2009 was 6.65%, compared to 8.16% in the year-ago period and 6.38% in the second quarter of 2009. The year-over-year improvement in churn is due to increased subscriber additions related to our national Boost Monthly Unlimited offering. The sequential increase in prepaid churn is related to seasonality and the significant growth of the Boost Monthly Unlimited customer base during the second quarter.
Wireless Service Revenues

Wireless service revenues for the quarter of $6.3 billion declined 8% year-over-year and 2% sequentially. The year-over-year and sequential decline is due to fewer post-paid subscribers, partially offset by more prepaid subscribers.
Wireless post-paid ARPU has been stable for the past seven quarters at approximately $56, primarily due to continued growth in fixed-rate bundled plans such as Simply Everything, offset by declines in usage and roaming. As a result of the company’s focus on improving the customer experience and seven consecutive quarters of improvement in customer care satisfaction, post-paid ARPU benefited from reduced credits to customer bills year-over-year.
Data revenues contributed more than $16.25 to overall post-paid ARPU in the third quarter, led by growth in CDMA data ARPU. CDMA data ARPU increased to greater than $19, an industry-best that now represents 34% of total CDMA ARPU.
Prepaid ARPU in the quarter was approximately $35 compared to $31 in the year-ago period and $34 in the second quarter of 2009. The year-over-year and sequential increases reflect a growing contribution from prepaid subscribers on unlimited plans.
Wholesale, affiliate and other revenues were down 41% compared to the year-ago period and flat sequentially. The year-over-year decline is primarily due to subscriber losses from one of our large carrier customers.
Wireless Operating Expenses and Adjusted OIBDA*

Total operating expenses were $7.4 billion in the third quarter, compared to $7.8 billion in the year-ago period and $7.3 billion in the second quarter of 2009.
Adjusted OIBDA* of $1.2 billion in the third quarter of 2009 compares to $1.6 billion in the third quarter of 2008 and $1.4 billion in the second quarter of 2009. The year-over-year decline in Adjusted OIBDA* was primarily due to fewer post-paid subscribers, partially offset by more prepaid subscribers and an improvement of $340 million in SG&A expenses. Sequentially, Adjusted OIBDA* declined almost $230 million as the decline in service revenue, seasonally higher cost of service, and increased subsidy expenses associated with higher customer additions, offset continued reductions in SG&A expenses.
Equipment subsidy was approximately $950 million (equipment revenue of approximately $530 million, less cost of products of $1.48 billion) as compared to about $700 million in the year-ago period and almost $850 million in the second quarter of 2009. The year-over-year increase in subsidy is a combination of a greater mix of post-paid handsets sold with higher-functionality, an increase in the number of prepaid handsets shipped as a result of the national Boost Monthly Unlimited offering and a decrease in average post-paid revenue per handset sold. The sequential increase in subsidy is primarily due to the increase in the number of handsets sold and the increase in average cost per handset sold as the company continues to sell a greater number of higher-functionality handsets.
SG&A expenses declined 14% year-over-year from the third quarter of 2008, and declined 2% sequentially from the second quarter of 2009. The year-over-year improvement is due to lower customer care, bad debt, and labor expenses. On a sequential basis, the decline reflects lower labor and customer care expenses partially offset by an increase in bad debt expenses.

Wireless Capital Spending

Wireless capital expenditures were $310 million in the third quarter of 2009, compared to $217 million spent in the third quarter of 2008 and $227 million in the second quarter of 2009. The company continues to invest capital in the quality and performance of its networks. At the end of the third quarter of 2009, Sprint’s networks continue to operate at best-ever levels and, according to third-party data, Sprint has the most dependable+ 3G network in the country.

seriously .... Sprint blows and needs to be bought out... 500mill loss? Jesus

Or at least it was dumb of Sprint not to buy Alltel out or vice verse

Nearly another million postpaid leaving Sprint again.. shame. Their total subscriber count continues to drop every quarter. When Hesse took over it was 55 million, and every quarter since now we're at 48.3 million.

At this rate, will Sprint ever be able to recover? Even the Boost Mobile prepaid adds couldn't offset the postpaid losses.



Sprint Nextel 3Q Loss Widens; Subscribers Keep Leaving

OH BROTHER HERE WE GO!!!

I want to wait until after the usuals post their same ol' doom and gloom.....before I grace everyone with my thoughts

So the Infamous Hesse hater corrupt81 gave his usual Hesse lost 6 million song....good that's out the way!

Now we just need:

johncase and monkeyboy to blame the plans!

Madsen to give his usuals quarterly Sprint bash with the everything negative slant.

Plane to play both sides of the fence like always

Anthro and andyville to enlighten us a usual how much better iden was run by itself

And finally the louisiana whinners to keep our minds fresh on how Sprint sucks because they don't have swamp land blanked in native 3g coverage....

DID I MISS ANYONE!

Looks like the loss of the Jitterbug MVNO could account for part of the losses. They did notate increased new subscriber growth which is promising, but isn't money in the pocket either.

Yes, you missed about 801,000 people.

Thank you for your efforts to get more of your friends in the inner-city projects to sign up for pre-pay. How much Sprint Stock have you purchased over the last 3 or so years? You must be rich now, and able to move out of the inner-city.

Good one Lenny. Oh you did miss one. YOU!

Sprint Nextel's (S) losses grew in the third quarter to $478 million, or 17 cents per share, as wireless subscribers continued to leave for other carriers. Revenue slipped 9 percent to $8.04 billion.

Lenny, If you were in an airplane, far away from an airport or landing field and it began descending due to the engines losing 70% of their power, would you think to yourself "I'm going to be OK, we still have 30%"

You've got a serious persecution complex Lenny. The reason people disagree with your posts & points of view is simply because, time after time, you are proven wrong.



Boost did much better than I expected, but still down a little from last quarter. Surprising to me that CDMA losses still abound... I thought CDMA was the future?

It also sounds like the "machine-to-machine" numbers are lacking, which I assume are the Kindle devices?

Did we ever get a final tally on how many Pre's got sold for the quarter? If the number was good, why is Sprint keeping it buried ?

Sprint's downward spiral seems like it will never end, I say jpapa1086 was right when suggesting Alltel should've been the 2nd acquisition target after iPCS. They came up with 1B to buy Virgin/iPCS. The problem is not the product, it's the perception of that product which is why I want to see some kind of spokesperson.

Sprint didn't have the scratch for a purchase the size of Alltel unfortunately.

People can take numbers and make it sound good no matter what they are, or make it seem worse than they really are.

Sprint says: Greatest retail subscriber "results" in two years.

The Street: You lost 801K postpaid, gained 801K prepaid boost, lost 135K for prepaid CDMA and lost 410K wholesale.

Here's what I don't like if I were an investor, postpay churn up from 2Q 2009, from 2.05% to 2.17%. What that tells me is that the phones/plans out there aren't enticing enough to keep people from switching to another provider or going prepaid.

lennyj17: Sprint has just announced that it has lost ~$500M and ~800k post-paid customers and you attack people who interpret that negatively? It is negative!

You make up things about Sprint and then attack people when they offer real evidence that proves you wrong.

You know what, the best thing is to just ignore you and pretend you don't exist. We all should have done that a long time ago.

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Well, Sprint lost ~100k fewer CDMA post-paid customers than the previous quarter. That's good. iDEN post-pay lost a few less too.

Overall customer loses were up due to 10x more loses from wholesale/affiliates.

Sprint's in a better money position since they raised some cash. They have enough cash to keep the lights on for about 3 years at the current rate, but they'll be paying interest on that.

Sprint's ARPU has been flat for the previous 7 quarters so they aren't losing less valuable customers, they're losing average customers.

The one decent number in there: the 800k Boost net adds. But that doesn't overcome the more than 1.3M lost in post-paid, wholesale, and CDMA prepaid.

Churn is a high 2.17% which puts them on par with T-Mobile's churn.

Net loses are above 500k - about double the previous quarter.

Heck, T-Mobile has more post-paid GSM customers than Sprint does post-paid CDMA customers. If losses like Sprint's continue (and even if T-Mobile gains no customers), T-Mobile will have more post-paid customers than Sprint in 2 years and 1 month. That's a scary thought. At the rate iDEN is going, it'll be Boost only in a bit over 3 and a half years.

Sprint refuses to say how many Palm Pres they've sold. Which means they don't want people comparing them to the 3.2M iPhones AT&T was able to sell last quarter.

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Really, it looks like par for the course. Nothing has improved too much. Sprint is still adding Boost customers while losing everyone else. AT&T and Verizon have post-pay churn around 1.15% (Verizon fudges their number to look a little lower by only including retail post-pay) and overall churn around 1.45%. Sprint has post-pay churn at 2.17% and overall retail churn at around 2.82%.

Hopefully Sprint will turn things around soon, but this quarter hasn't shown that evidence. Hopefully Sprint will have a good 4th quarter attracting customers with the Moment and Hero and the new Any Mobile (none of which would really show up in these results). However, Verizon is also getting a new Android phone and the Droid looks rally great (with a much higher resolution screen).

.............

Just Waiting on Monkeyboy, Johncase, Anthro and the Louisiana folks.....Thought the would've posted by now, this Red Meat for them.

Everyone else good job....You smelled that red meat when the earnings come out, and provided your usual i mean posts right on schedule....