Right now, CTIA is going on in Las Vegas. And pretty much all the CEO’s of the carriers and some FCC guys are down there giving keynotes, etc., about all kinds of things. Re/Code was able to sit down with Sprint’s new CEO, Marcelo Claure and talk about changing the direction of Sprint. Claure did say that on the bright side a few days during his time as CEO of the number three carrier, they did see more additions than losses. Meaning they actually added customers. Instead of breaking even or losing. Of course, that’s not the story everyday, but every little bit counts when you lost a few million customers in 2013. It’s clear that Claure still has a lot of work to do here, but things are beginning to turn around slowly, which is a good thing for Sprint. And there’s no doubt that their new price plans had something to do with it.
Claure also told Re/Code that new customers and keeping current ones will be the yardstick that he and his staff are measured by. It’s important to grow your customer base, because that’s more revenue coming in to the company. And that will keep stock holders happy, as well as giving the company money to work on their network. Which after my trip to Chicago last week, it’s clear that Sprint isn’t the only one that needs to work on their network.
Masayoshi Son, the CEO of Softbank and Chairman of Sprint, told Claure that he has to do everything within his power to get back to winning. And so far it appears that he is doing just that. In terms of their network, Claure stated that the company has been on a lot of bumps with their network. Not to mention the huge ones were Nextel’s spectrum and WiMax. But Claure seems to think that they are beginning to turn a corner with their network. And we certainly hope that he’s right. Sprint has a lot of good stuff to offer, but unfortunately in most areas their network isn’t one of them. And if they can get their speeds up everywhere, I think they can start bringing in customers as quickly as T-Mobile is currently. Especially when Sprint Spark goes live in a lot more cities.