How Sprint Won Its Q2 Earnings

The company had postpaid net additions of 310,000, compared to net losses of 181,000 in the prior year quarter, an improvement of 491,000 year over year. Despite postpaid phone losses of 12,000, this quarter was the first time in nearly two years that Sprint recorded monthly postpaid phone net additions in both May and June.

Total net additions of 675,000 compared to net losses of 220,000 in the prior-year quarter. The 895,000 year-over-year improvement was mostly driven by fewer postpaid phone customer losses. Prepaid net losses of 366,000 compared to net losses of 542,000 in the year-ago quarter. Wholesale net additions of 731,000 compared to 503,000 in the prior-year quarter.

Cash and cash equivalents totaled $2.06 billion at the end of the second quarter. However there was a negative cash flow during the quarter of $1.95 billion, which nearly halved cash and cash equivalents to its current level.

Looking ahead, the company gave guidance for the 2015 fiscal year. Sprint expects EBITDA to be in the range of $7.2 billion to $7.6 billion and for capital expenditures to be $5 billion.

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Marcelo Claure, CEO of Sprint, said:

Over the past year, Sprint has made meaningful progress in our turnaround by improving our network performance and enhancing our overall value proposition. As a result, we hit significant milestones during the quarter by posting the company’s lowest-ever churn and recording postpaid phone net additions in both May and June, as well as for a third consecutive month in July. Going forward, we are confident in our plan to leverage our unique spectrum assets to make our network a competitive advantage, aggressively reduce operating costs, and utilize our business relationships and assets to fund our turnaround.

Total liquidity was $6.6 billion at the end of the quarter, and the company had an additional $1.3 billion of availability under vendor financing agreements that can be utilized toward the purchase of 2.5 GHz network equipment.

Shares of Sprint closed Monday down 0.9% to $3.34, in a 52-week trading range of $3.10 to $7.48. After the earnings were released, shares were up 7.8% at $3.60 in early trading indications Tuesday. The stock has a consensus analyst price target of $7.28.