AppleInsider Staff
In its quarterly earnings announcement early Tuesday, Sprint said it sold 1.4 million iPhones for the July quarter, but lost almost 2 million subscribers as a it shuttered the Nextel iDen network in late June.
As it did in the first quarter of 2013, Sprint saw strong smartphone sales, but ended up losing a significant number of subscribers, which for the second quarter came close to 2 million customers, reports AllThingsD.
The third-largest U.S. cellular carrier saw revenue reach $7.2 billion, up 8 percent from the same period last year. The company posted an operating loss of $874 million, however, thanks to depreciation of $430 million and $623 million in non-cash charges related to the shutdown of the Nextel platform.
By the time the Nextel network shut down on June 30, the telecom was able to keep and transition more than 4 million subscribers to the Sprint platform, a 44 percent postpaid recapture rate.
Smartphones accounted for some 86 percent of quarterly postpaid handset sales, including the approximately 1.4 million iPhones, 41 percent of which were sold to new customers.
Sprint also closed three major transactions during the quarter, including a $21.6 billion takeover bid from SoftBank and the acquisition of Clearwire and U.S. Cellular for spectrum assets and existing customers.
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4 Comments
I believe iPhone will keep them afloat along with their cheaper rates and unlimited Internet offerings.....if they'll still offer it that is.
44 percent capture rate? So they lost 56 percent of Nextel subscribers? Way to go, Sprint.
Haha, only two comments after being posted for a while. I guess not that many people care about Sprint, hehe.
Back in the dark ages before smartphones, I loved my little Nextel i1000. Closest phone I've had to a Star Trek communicator. My family and I used PTT all the time.
Heck, I might still be using that thing if it hadn't been stolen.