Sprint Loss Widens, Posts Record Q1 Subscriber Growth

Telecom giant Sprint Corp. (NYSE: S) reported first-quarter fiscal 2016 earnings before markets opened Monday morning. The wireless communications company posted a diluted per share net loss of $0.08, compared with a net loss a year ago of $0.01. Quarterly revenues totaled $8.01 billion, compared with revenues of $8.84 billion in the first quarter of 2015.

The company’s net loss totaled $302 million, operating income of $361 million, and adjusted EBITDA totaled $2.5 billion. Results included a one-time charge of $113 million related to the termination of a contract with Ntelos. That contract also reduced operating income from $501 million in the year-ago quarter. Adjusted EBITDA rose primarily due to expense reductions including $550 million in cost of services and SG&A expenses.

Sprint added 173,000 net postpaid (contract) subscribers in the first quarter, up from a net loss of 12,000 in the prior year quarter. Sprint’s prepaid net losses totaled 331,000 compared with net losses of 366,000 a year ago. Net additions for the company totaled 377,000 in the quarter, including postpaid net additions of 180,000 and wholesale and affiliate net additions of 528,000. Total postpaid churn remained flat year over year at 1.56%.

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The company claims a total of 59.45 million connections, up from 56.81 million at the same time last year. Average revenue per user (ARPU) on the Sprint platform fell by about $4 per month for postpaid subscribers and by about $0.50 per prepaid customer compared with the first quarter of 2015.

CEO Marcelo Claure said:

We had another quarter of solid progress in our turnaround with the highest first quarter postpaid phone net additions in nine years, the lowest postpaid phone churn in company history, and finally being postpaid net port positive against all three national carriers after five years. We also grew wireless net operating revenue year-over-year while aggressively reducing the cash operating expenses of the business and our network is performing better than ever.

The company provided fiscal year 2016 guidance calling for adjusted EBITDA in a range of $9.5 billion to $10 billion, operating income of $1.0 billion to $1.5 billion, cash capex of about $3 billion and break-even adjusted free cash flow.

Sprint’s stock traded up about 3.5% in Monday’s premarket, at $4.78 in a 52-week range of $2.18 to $5.29. Shares closed at $4.60 on Friday. The consensus price target was $7.28 before the earnings announcement.

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