Sprint's 4th Quarter and Full Year 2012 Earnings Released

[marioc21]

Sprint has released their 4th quarter and full year earnings for 2012.

 

Here's the press release:

http://finance.yahoo...-120000352.html

 

Financial Highlights:

• Net Revenue of $9 billion, full year revenues of $35.3 billion.
  
• Net loss of $1.3 billion for the quarter. Includes $400 million in accelerated depreciation due to nextel shutdown and network vision. Net loss of $4.325 billion for all of 2012.
  
• Free cash flow of -$1.3 billion in quarter. -$1.4 billion for the year.
  
• Sprint platform added 401,000 postpaid customers. Includes 333,000 nextel customers recaptured. 525,000 net prepaid customers were added. Including recapture of 188,000 nextel prepaid customers. Total net loss of 337,000 wireless customers.
  
• 2.2 million iphones sold in the quarter. 38% to new Sprint customers. Total of 6.6 million iphones sold for full year.
  
• 4 million total LTE phones sold in 2012.
  

Network Vision Highlights:

• Number of sites ready for upgrades or already underway is at 19,500.
  
• More than 8,000 sites are on air.
  
• Weekly construction starts are up 56% from third quarter.
  
• Sprint expects to have 12,000 sites up and running by end of first quarter.
  

The earnings call is schedule for 8am. If you'd like to listen in, the webcast is here: http://investors.spr...spx?iid=4057219

[marioc21]

Listening to the call now. Hesse says LTE is up and running in 58 citiies.

[marioc21]

Admits that network vision is behind schedule. Working hard to catch up to the big 2.

[marioc21]

From slides: Only 2.1 million nextel customers remain. Still on track to shut down remainder of nextel by end of second quarter.

[digiblur]

I can see people not understanding that 19,500 number, Sprint lists it as: More than 19,500 sites now ready for construction on their site. Why haven't they started on these???

[marioc21]

Network vision updates: Zoning complete on over 29,000 sites. Leasing complete on more than 27,000 sites.

[marioc21]

Expect to start launch of 800 LTE this year. Improve LTE site density and capacity. Due to new funding from Softbank.

 

Update: 2.5 mhz to 3 mhz of cdma voice on 800 is already being deployed. LTE on 800 will commence in 4th quarter of 2013. Sounds like 800 LTE had been planned for 2014 before.

[digiblur]

4Q 2013 is 800 LTE start.

 

I like the LTE site density/capacity comment where they say they are going with more due to funding. Wonder what this exactly means though. Additional sites I hope.

[marioc21]

I can see people not understanding that 19,500 number, Sprint lists it as: More than 19,500 sites now ready for construction on their site. Why haven't they started on these???

 

I would think it's a question of manpower. There are only so many crews that can be deployed.

[digiblur]

I would think it's a question of manpower. There are only so many crews that can be deployed.

 

I wasn't asking. I know why already.

[marioc21]

Sprint expects a net loss in postpaid customers for first half of year. Basically until the remaining 1.6 million nextel postpaid customers go away.

[digiblur]

I wonder why they expect to lose over 1 million customers on some re-certification? Wasn't sure what he was meaning. Kicking customers off for roaming too much? bad credit? SERO? As long as they are paying and as long as the roaming isn't over the policy then let it ride.

[marioc21]

I wonder why they expect to lose over 1 million customers on some re-certification? Wasn't sure what he was meaning. Kicking customers off for roaming too much? bad credit? SERO? As long as they are paying and as long as the roaming isn't over the policy then let it ride.

 

One of Sprint's prepaid arms is assurance wireless. It's a federally subsidized cell phone program for low income people. Sounds like the feds are going back and clearing out accounts that are inactive or haven't been paid. That's going to account for the bulk of it. Additionally, it sounds like some of their wholesale mvno customers are going to do similar things to dump inactive customers.

 

update: doing some digging on lifeline service. Looks like the FCC requires lifeline customers to recertify their eligibility for the program every year. I guess lots of Sprint assurance customers either didn't qualify any more for failed to complete the re-certification process.

[marioc21]

Q&A time on the earnings call.

[rjw]

I wonder why they expect to lose over 1 million customers on some re-certification? Wasn't sure what he was meaning. Kicking customers off for roaming too much? bad credit? SERO? As long as they are paying and as long as the roaming isn't over the policy then let it ride.

I got from it that the government has made some changes to the way the program works and current and new customers for the Assurance Wireless may affect those customers??

[digiblur]

One of Sprint's prepaid arms is assurance wireless. It's a federally subsidized cell phone program for low income people. Sounds like the feds are going back and clearing out accounts that are inactive or haven't been paid. That's going to account for the bulk of it. Additionally, it sounds like some of their wholesale mvno customers are going to do similar things to dump inactive customers.

 

Ahhh... I missed that part. Makes sense now. Thanks. I have heard from others that there is an effort to clean out those accounts.

 

I see they commented on that there will not be new cell sites. They were talking about 800 LTE as adding density and capacity.

[marioc21]

New fact: Hesse said that Sprint adds that feature apple gear have to get approval from Apple. I guess it wouldn't be any other way.

[JeffDTD]

I'll go ahead and beat that dead horse... I hope this newfound monetary optimism leads to reconsider shedding iden only sites in iden only areas. Yes, i'm selfishly advocating for them not to concess 60+ miles of site infrastructure near me on a highway to "cdma roam forever".....

 

243k+- "wholesale and affiliate" customers" were lost in 4th quarter 2012. Anybody know what affiliate or wholesale agreement held that many customers?

 

With more than 2 million postpaid+prepaid nextel subscribers still, I can only guess that the offers to them to move to Sprint will get better than ever. It would be nice to see sprint recapture 50%+ of them. Its a little concerning to me to see the Sprint platform postpaid churn increasing. It would be calming to see if those losses geographically plot out areas where NV had a temporary effect (Chicago, for example) but without that, its further evidence of increased competitiveness in the market and despite Iphone+unlimited data+best rates in the industry, the network or the data speed is meeting fewer current customer's needs than it was a year ago. More could also be going prepaid. Sprint platform prepaid churn increased at about the same % as postpaid.

 

I'm proud of Hesse for sailing this ship into 2013 with all this positive stuff, regardless. Soooooo many haters claimed Sprint would die years and years ago.

[marioc21]

More Hesse: Watching how customers respond to handset financing and installment plans that other carriers (TMo) are trying. Would be able to move quickly if it started taking hold.

[marioc21]

And that is that. Call is done.

[jefbal99]

I would really hope with this cash influx that Sprint looks at iden only areas to upgrade if PCS spectrum is available or at least get 800 1xA and LTE out there.

[marioc21]

I would really hope with this cash influx that Sprint looks at iden only areas to upgrade if PCS spectrum is available or at least get 800 1xA and LTE out there.

 

No mention of iden only sites. But they did says 800 voice is already being deployed and 800 LTE deployment would happen earlier than originally planned. Targeting 4th quarter.

[marioc21]

I have to go back and listen later once the audio archive is up, but I think Hesse said Sprint was the number 1 seller of the Galaxy SIII. I find that very surprising if true.

[rjw]

4Q 2013 is 800 LTE start.

 

I like the LTE site density/capacity comment where they say they are going with more due to funding. Wonder what this exactly means though. Additional sites I hope.

For capacity I believe they mentioned that they would continue upgrading backhaul for sites that haven't received NV

[S4GRU]

They say it's earlier than originally planned, because they said publicly 2014. However, internally, it was always 3rd quarter 2013. So internally they are behind one quarter on LTE 800. But what matters is what they say, I suppose.

 

And this makes sense, because Network Vision is pretty much behind a full quarter. They were going to have 12,000 sites online by the end of 2012, now it is the end of the first quarter.

 

All things considered, this is good news. We already knew NV was running a little behind. But it is full steam ahead. Nothing gonna stop us now!

 

Robert via Nexus 7 with Tapatalk HD