SoftBank has had a bit of a rocky time in the US, since purchasing a majority stake in Sprint back in 2013. The company has tried a few things to turn Sprint around. Including buying competitor, T-Mobile USA from Deutsche Telekom. After it appeared that regulators were not going to approve a bid for Sprint to buy T-Mobile USA, SoftBank decided to install a new CEO for Sprint, and they chose Marcelo Claure. Since becoming CEO in August of 2014, Claure has been focused on lowering prices, and gaining customers. It has been a slow process for Sprint, but they are actually bringing in more customers now. Despite still posting an operating loss for the quarter, when they announced their earnings earlier this week.
Sprint’s owner, SoftBank, reported their earnings this week as well. As you’d expect, CEO and Founder of SoftBank, Masayoshi Son, was asked about Sprint. Son told reporters that “Sprint is no longer dragging us down but is about to turn into a cash maker for us”. Son continued to say that Sprint sales were better in USD terms. They appeared lower, due to the currency exchange rate. He also stressed that revenue and customers are improving though.
Masayoshi Son is definitely looking forward to Sprint’s turnaround. It was reported earlier this year that Son has lost $3.2 billion since his company acquired Sprint nearly three years ago. On top of that, since SoftBank took a controlling stake in Sprint, the company has dropped from the third largest US wireless carrier, to now being the fourth and in last place. Although a big part of that is due to Deutsche Telekom installing John Legere as T-Mobile USA’s CEO in 2012, who has led a pretty impressive turnaround of his own at T-Mobile USA. Something that Son is hoping Marcelo Claure is able to do with Sprint. And so far, it appears that he might just be able to do that.
In the quarter, Sprint added 173,000 customers. Although their losses did widen from $20 million a year ago to $302 million. However, as long as they continue to add customers, their losses should dissipate in the next few quarters.