Telecom & Wireless

Sprint Continues to Grow, and Continues to Lose Money

Sprint Corp. (NYSE: S) is out with its fourth-quarter earnings report. The wireless telecom provider said that its operating loss for the period improved 22% to $576 million. The company’s adjusted EBITDA was $1.15 billion, up by almost 40% and over $300 million from the prior year.

Fourth-quarter Sprint platform wireless service revenue of $7.2 billion was up for the 15th consecutive quarter, and the company ended the year with some 53.9 million subscribers — its highest ever number of Sprint platform subscribers. Quarterly additions came to 682,000 total Sprint platform net additions, with 58,000 Sprint platform postpaid net additions. The total retail prepaid churn was 3.22% in the fourth quarter, and the total retail postpaid churn was 2.15%.

Sprint also said that 2013 was its best ever annual Sprint platform postpaid average revenue per user of $64.07. The company also said that 2013 was the highest ever annual Sprint platform wireless service revenue, with more than 5% growth to $28.6 billion.

Operating revenue rose to more than $9.1 billion for the fourth quarter, versus a Thomson Reuters consensus of $8.7 billion, and the quarterly net loss was $1 billion, versus $1.3 billion in the fourth quarter of 2012. The fourth-quarter operating loss was $576 million.

Sprint expects 2014 adjusted EBITDA to be between $6.5 billion and $6.7 billion. The company also said that it expects 2014 capital expenditures of approximately $8 billion.

Sprint shares closed down 4% at $7.69 on Monday ahead of the report, and the 52-week trading range is $5.61 to $11.47.

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