Sprint 3rd Quarter 2014 Earnings

[JWMaloney]

That's not what S4GRU members who are store employees are saying. They say in the past two weeks of September to present, there has been a huge drive of people into Sprint stores because of their new price plans. Roughly 3x increase in new customers.

 

You are letting your own personal opinion of Sprint cloud your judgment on the issue. Heck, it was enough to get me to drop my Ting plan and jump back to Sprint.

 

Using Nexus 5 on Tapatalk

I'm surprised you would have done that now over when Framily was promoted. Framily best-case scenario gets you unlimited for $45 or 1 GB for $25, whereas the new plans get you unlimited for $60 or 1 GB for $35.

[lennyj17]

Say what you want about Tmobile, they know how to run a good ad campaign. I wonder who they're using for that. No reason Sprint shouldnt be able to hire the same ad firm, and never talk to the Hamster people again.

 

The AT&T ads annoy me too, the one with the two awkward tech guys.

I think Firing the Marketing team, was one of Masa first moves at Sprint... and it was obviously something that needed to go...

 

But now they need to rebuild, they need a message, something that Sprint can use to define itself and build on.... "Now Network" back in early Hesse era had the makings to meet "Most Reliable" levels of Branding, but it crashed under the bad press of WiMax, and Slow, non-usable 3G. 

 

Sprint won't have any significant post-paid adds until 1) The Network is prime time, and 2) They have a solid, on-point, in-your-face marketing, branding campaign to thwart and counter all of the Negativity out there around the Sprint brand. 

 

Plans were the easy part... Offer more value and that's good enough to get some people in the door, but if the Network is not adequate enough, they'll Churn right back out the door ... 

 

Solid Marketing/Branding not only brings people in, it also retains them... Think of it like constant pep-rally, you keep regurgitating "Best Network, Best Prices" type Themes and Marketing to your loyal base, and they can somewhat see that in their Bills, and with the Network. They will be loyal, and it will be harder for other carriers to poach them. It's Brand Loyalty 101.

 

 

Legere and TMO put out a FANTASTIC Marketing/Branding campaign, just look at all the TMO fanboys out there now, carrying the torches for TMO. It was Brilliant... I wish Sprint could get some that marketing talent , they desperately need it.   

 

No more Zombies, Hamsters, and other Goofy, Lame Ass campaigns. Gotta fight Fire with Fire. 

[JeffDTD]

Part of me believes that if sprint had managed to keep the premier program while still launching the iphone and have avoided the 2-3 "gotcha" price increases we went through in a very short window, some of the legacy customer loyalty would have been easier to hold on to

[derrph]

2015 in my eyes will be the make it or break it year.

[jamisonshaw125]

Yeh. They could start off with.... "We know we sucked in the past few years, we're sorry."

 

[bigsnake49]

Well, with all the hue and cry, Sprint manage to slightly increase their EBITDA margins in the 3rd quarter to almost 24%. 

[jamisonshaw125]

Well, with all the hue and cry, Sprint manage to slightly increase their EBITDA margins in the 3rd quarter to almost 24%. 

How did Tmobile do? Didn't theirs go down again?

[NYC126]

How did Tmobile do? Didn't theirs go down again?

Tmobile Ebitda crashed, and burned. Those uncarriers policies will go out the door soon. I expect them to keep only the non contract policy. My guess is that they want to keep the buying contracts, and others uncarriers policies until they pass sprint for number 3.

[Conan Kudo]

Tmobile Ebitda crashed, and burned. Those uncarriers policies will go out the door soon. I expect them to keep only the non contract policy. My guess is that they want to keep the buying contracts, and others uncarriers policies until they pass sprint for number 3.

Are you even reading the same numbers as the rest of us? Because I didn't see a "crash" in EBITDA. In fact, T-Mobile's EBITDA and margin appears to be higher than Sprint's at the end of this quarter. It dipped a bit, true, but it wasn't a significant drop. Sprint's drop was more drastic, as it fell quite a bit.

 

Not only that, T-Mobile will start recognizing the return on ETF buyout (and resale of traded in devices) investments next year. There's also the MetroPCS CDMA network shutdown savings that will improve the cost structure, too.

[kamiller42]

I'm surprised you would have done that now over when Framily was promoted. Framily best-case scenario gets you unlimited for $45 or 1 GB for $25, whereas the new plans get you unlimited for $60 or 1 GB for $35.

 

My thoughts exactly. I thought the Framily plan was genius. It was an easy referral plan to bring people to Sprint. The reward? Very low monthly price. I got 2 people from AT&T and 1 from Verizon to come over. They are senior citizens, so $25/line fit into their limited budget.

 

But again, as others have said, fancy pricing footwork is only going to get you so far. You need a network that delivers. And at this point, Sprint needs one that not just delivers but impresses.

[gnoj]

I got 2 people from AT&T and 1 from Verizon to come over. They are senior citizens, so $25/line fit into their limited budget.

Yep, the new plans are in many cases a definite price increase over Framily, and lack the benefit of separate billing.

 

For folks like many senior citizens who don't want/need any mobile data, I would have liked to have also seen a $15-20 option (the Home Phone Connect uses the same network, and is $20/mo- $13.74 for unlimited voice service + $6.25 for the terminal), but in the meantime Ting fills that niche pretty well, as long as they're ok with not getting a paper bill.

 

I left my mother on Ting, where she pays $9-15/mo before tax, depending on the bucket she falls in, and unlike prepaid, there is no distinction between native and roaming usage. It would be nice to send her an occasional text though without having to pay another $3.

 

Framily best-case scenario gets you unlimited for $45 or 1 GB for $25, whereas the new plans get you unlimited for $60 or 1 GB for $35.

I believe it's actually $45 for 1GB, because the line fee is inexplicably $10 more for the smaller data buckets. So instead of unlimited data + annual upgrades, an individual now gets just 1GB for that price.

[dkyeager]

It has been a few days and obviously Sprint's stock has cratered. The layoff of 2000 and the reduction of capex leaves the strong impression of a company on the ropes in the competitive arena. The most alarming item is that Sprint too was guilty of inflating subscriber numbers by taking those with bad credit in a pre-merger environment. I am heartened by Sprint announcing b41 via their coverage maps far far sooner. Had b41 been fully available and shown on the coverage maps soon after I saw it in Columbus about a year ago, Sprint would have been seen as the local market tech leader. Even with b41 CA, today it will look like an also ran in terms of top speed in Columbus. Usable perception will be far greater if they change network formulas to allow far easier access to b41 (hopefully this is just because of fiber issues that should be soon resolved). Beyond network improvements, the real area I hope to see improving is in marketing. I heard a lot of Boost Mobile ads, but saw only a few Sprint. I think Son will need to add another year to his turnaround target. I do think at least Sprint is getting pointed in the right direction.