Sprint Posts $478 Million Net Loss for Q3

Wireless carrier Sprint Nextel announced today its financial results for the third quarter of the ongoing year and posted net operating revenues of $8.0 billion, along with a net loss of $478 million and 17 cents per share diluted loss. According to the company, its Free Cash Flow for the time frame was of $664 million.

During the same quarter a year ago, the company registered a loss of $326 million, or 11 cents a share. The revenue went down with almost 9 percent in Q3 2009, while the Free Cash Flow registered year-to-date during 2009 was of $2.1 billion. At the end of the third quarter, the wireless carrier had a total liquidity of $7.5 billion, including $5.9 billion in cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments, and also $1.6 billion in borrowing capacity.

“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, 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.

When it comes to the total number of net retail subscribers Sprint had at the end of the time frame, it went down by 135,000. However, the company saw impressive growth in post-paid gross additions on a yearly basis, and also the highest on quarter in the past five years. According to Sprint, it has seen a 20 percent improvement in net post-paid subscriber losses both during the second and the third quarter of the ongoing year.

“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 carrier also stated that it expected to see improvements in both post-paid and total subscriber full-year losses for the entire year 2009, and that they would also improve on quarter during Q4 2009. Sprint also expects for its full-year capital expenditures to be less than $1.7 billion, and hopes to continue to generate positive Free Cash Flow in the fourth quarter of the year too.