Time for another round of wireless carrier earnings announcements

[marioc21]

First up is Verizon. Below are the highlights.

• Wireless service revenues were $15.8 billion for the qtr.
  
• 1.2 million new retail customers including 888,000 new postpaid customers added.
  
• 94.2 million total retail customers including 88.2 million postpaid customers
  
• ARPU of $56.13, up 3.7% from 2nd qtr last year.
  
• 50% of postpaid customers are on smartphones. Up from 47% last qtr.
  
• Postpaid churn of 0.84% for the qtr. Total retail churn of 1.11%
  
• 4G LTE is now available in 337 markets to more than 230 million people.
  
• Company expects to close wireless spectrum purchase from SpectrumCo, Cox & Leap by end of summer. Will execute Tmo spectrum swap soon thereafter.
  

SEC Filing:

 

http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/732712/000119312512306829/d380431dex99.htm

 

AT&T reports its quarterly earnings on July 24. Followed by Sprint and Clearwire on July 26. Deutsch Telekom (T-Mobile) reports their earnings on August 9.

[4GHoward]

MetroPCS will also host their conference call on July 26, and Leap Wireless (Cricket) will host their conference call on August 6.

[marioc21]

And today's announcement comes to you from AT&T land. Let's see some highlights:

• $31.6 billion in consolidated revenue. (All of ATT operations)
  
• 18.8% growth in wireless data revenues
  
• Postpaid churn of 0.97%
  
• 1.3 million total wireless net adds, 320,000 postpaid adds. Total subscribers of 105.2 million.
  
• 5.1 million smarphones sold. Smartphones are 77% of postpaid device sales. 61.9% of ATT customers now own smartphones. 1/3 of all postpaid subscribers now on 4g devices. (Probably includes faux G devices.)
  
• 3.7 million iphones activated. 22% were new customers to ATT.
  
• Wireless ARPU up to $64.93
  
• 2/3 of smartphone subscribers are now on a tiered data plan.
  

Here are press releases:

http://www.bgr.com/2012/07/24/att-q2-2012-earnings-profit-iphone/

http://finance.yahoo...-113000149.html

 

Their earnings call will be held at 9:30am EDT and can be heard here:

 

http://phoenix.corpo...EventId=4776744

 

 

Sprint is up next on Thursday morning followed by Clearwire in the afternoon.

[marioc21]

And finally the moment we've all been waiting for. Here are Sprint's 2nd quarter financial results. The press release is here:

 

http://finance.yahoo...-110000421.html

 

The highlights are as follows:

• Total revenues of $8.8 billion for the quarter.
  
• Net loss of $1.4 billion or $0.46/share. Loss includes $782 million in depreciation related to NV and Nextel shutdown, $184 million in lease exit fees on nextel towers and $204 million in impairment costs to clearwire investment.
  
• Sprint generated $209 million in free cash flow for the quarter.
  
• The Company had $8 billion in liquidity. $6.8 billion in cash and cash equivalents as well as $1.2 billion in available credit lines.
  

Wireless highlights

• Sprint platform added 442,000 net postpaid subscribers. Nextel postpaid lost 688,000 customers. Total net loss of postpaid customers was 246,000.
  
• Sprint recaptured 60% of Nextel customer losses.
  
• Sprint platform churn down to 1.69%.
  
• Sprint added 141,000 net pre-paid customers and 388,000 wholesale customers.
  
• Sprint had over 56.3 million customers at end of 2nd quarter. 32.6 million postpaid, 15.4 million prepaid and 8.4 million wholesale and affiliate customers.
  
• 3.1 million postpaid and 1.4 million prepaid on Nextel remaining.
  
• 1.5 million iphones sold. 40% to new customers.
  

Network Vision Points

• 9,600 Nextel sites are now shutdown. Earlier that previous guidance.
  
• Leasing is completed on 12,700 sites.
  
• Zoning requirements are completed for 13,900 sites.
  
• More than 6,300 sites are under construction or will start soon.
  
• More than 2,000 sites are on-air.
  
• 12,000 sites expected to be completed by end of 2012.
  

The earnings call will be held at 8:00 am EDT. Here's the link for anyone that wants to listen in.

 

http://services.chor...rint120726.html

 

If you want to look through the presentation slides, the are already posted as well. Here you go:

 

http://investors.spr...&fid=1001167674

 

 

Correction: earnings call starts at 8am.

Edited July 26, 2012 by marioc21

[marioc21]

From the earnings call. Sprint is going to focus on improving financials in 2012 vs growing the customer base. That must be what investors are liking this morning.

 

http://finance.yahoo...-121636241.html

 

Maybe not. From the call and presentation one of hte key goals for 2012 is customer growth and revenue growth on Sprint platform.

[marioc21]

From earnings call: Sprint expects to launch 4 additional markets, including Baltimore by the end of august.

[marioc21]

From call: Now estimating NV impact for 2012 to cost $300 million less.

 

Due to:

• Fewer nextel losses.
  
• Improved backhaul costs
  
• Better lease rates on towers.
  

 

2013 outlook unchanged.

[marioc21]

Less than $800 million in debt coming due in 2013.

[marioc21]

Q&A Time.

[marioc21]

On NV:

 

Several hundred sites that are waiting for backhaul right now before they are turned on. Several other sites had vendors waiting for antennas to arrive that were backordered. Started key cities early on this year and have more cities gearing up. Confident that they'll hit 12,000 site target for 2012.

 

Addition: Totally missed this on the call. Apparently there are some towers they can't work on yet because there are birds nests there. Not sure why you can't just kick the birds out. That's what I do to the robins who keep trying to build above my front door.

 

http://www.engadget.com/2012/07/26/sprint-lte-delay-birds/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+weblogsinc%2Fengadget+%28Engadget%29

[marioc21]

Hesse:

 

Unlimited is still significant differentiator. Going for simplicity. Have not seen any change in customer behavior due to "shared" plans put out by VZ and ATT. No reason to make any changes to Sprint's plans right now.

 

Stay tuned for update on tablet plans for Sprint. Can't disclose anything right now.

[marioc21]

iPhone:

 

Significantly better churn performance than other devices. Lower calls to care. Lower service and repair. Fewer returns. Still early though. 40% of new customers were new. Credits rate plans for drawing new iphone customers in.

[marioc21]

And we're done.

[cdiao]

From earnings call: Sprint expects to launch 4 additional markets, including Baltimore by the end of august.

 

did they say which markets other than Baltimore?

 

 

Robert, besides Chicago and Austin, which are the most likely candidates for the "end of August" launch time-frame?

[marioc21]

did they say which markets other than Baltimore?

 

 

Robert, besides Chicago and Austin, which are the most likely candidates for the "end of August" launch time-frame?

 

Nope. Baltimore was the only one specifically mentioned. Could be more minor ones like all those in Texas.

[cdiao]

Nope. Baltimore was the only one specifically mentioned. Could be more minor ones like all those in Texas.

 

i just went through the various market deployment updates on this site -- seems like Boston, and DC are likely candidates, and LA is doubtful given how huge that market is (more likely October) and also linked with Orange County's deployment.

[S4GRU]

I wasn't on the call, but I keep seeing cities and not markets referenced for the four in August. I'm thinking its something like: Baltimore, Annapolis, Frederick and Salisbury. One market, four cities. I'll dig more into details when I get back from vacation.

 

Robert via CM9 Kindle Fire using Forum Runner

[bigsnake49]

I'm impressed that they still had positive cash flow and still have a substantial amount of cash at hand.

[marioc21]

I wasn't on the call, but I keep seeing cities and not markets referenced for the four in August. I'm thinking its something like: Baltimore, Annapolis, Frederick and Salisbury. One market, four cities. I'll dig more into details when I get back from vacation.

 

Robert via CM9 Kindle Fire using Forum Runner

 

 

Here are the four cities:

 

http://s4gru.com/index.php?/topic/1674-next-four-lte-cities-announced/

[ericdabbs]

I wished Sprint would have talked about how the Virgin and Boost Mobile platforms are doing in terms of 4G Wimax phone sales and the general customer's reception to 4G Wimax availability. I am curious because I would like to see if Virgin and Boost Mobile customers are taking advantage of Wimax to help offload 3G traffic.

[pyroscott]

I wished Sprint would have talked about how the Virgin and Boost Mobile platforms are doing in terms of 4G Wimax phone sales and the general customer's reception to 4G Wimax availability. I am curious because I would like to see if Virgin and Boost Mobile customers are taking advantage of Wimax to help offload 3G traffic.

 

They did touch on it. They said wimax was still in the single digit percentage for prepaid. With the E4GT and Evo 3D making their way to boost and virgin, that percentage should go up significantly.

 

Sent from my Nexus 7 (nakasi) using Forum Runner

[marioc21]

They did touch on it. They said wimax was still in the single digit percentage for prepaid. With the E4GT and Evo 3D making their way to boost and virgin, that percentage should go up significantly.

 

Sent from my Nexus 7 (nakasi) using Forum Runner

 

4g service was available at the end of May. That means only one month was reflected in the quarterly earnings. I've only recently started seeing Virgin and Boost commercials that reference 4g. Next quarter will be a much better barometer for how well wimax devices are selling on prepaid. Not to mention how well the iphone is selling as a prepaid device.

[MacinJosh]

I wished Sprint would have talked about how the Virgin and Boost Mobile platforms are doing in terms of 4G Wimax phone sales and the general customer's reception to 4G Wimax availability. I am curious because I would like to see if Virgin and Boost Mobile customers are taking advantage of Wimax to help offload 3G traffic.

 

My mom hasn't. Her complaint is the price of the phones so far.

[marioc21]

And now we have Clearwire reporting their 2nd quarter results. Here's the press release:

 

http://finance.yahoo...-200500231.html

 

Highlights:

• $316.9 million in revenue. Down from 2nd quarter last year.
  
• Total subscribers of 11 million subscribers. 1.3 retail customers and 9.6 million wholesale customers. Wholesale customers are mainly sprint 4g customers.
  
• Net loss of $143.2 million vs 160.5 million 2nd quarter last year.
  
• MOU signed with China Mobile regarding TDD-LTE roaming in future.
  
• Plans with Qualcomm and Sequans to incorporate TDD-LTE in their future products.
  

 

Same old same old for clearwire. Revenue was down mainly due to the new flat rate agreement with Sprint. Additionally, they had a net loss of 4g wholesale customers. That was probably due to more iphone customers and the introduction of LTE phones on Sprint.