Sprint just posted their quarterly results for the third quarter of their fiscal year (which ran from October 1st through December 31st). The company announced that they brought in $8.7 billion in net operating profits, which is a 5% year-over-year increase. They are also noting that this is their second consecutive quarter of year-over-year growth. Sprint did post a net loss of $479 million in the quarter, operating income of about $311 million and an adjusted EBITDA of $2.5 billion. Sprint was proud to announce that their adjusted EBITDA improved by over $500 million, year-over-year. The company was also able to reduce more than $1.6 billion when it comes to cost of service and selling and other expenses, year-over-year.
When it comes to customers, Sprint posted 368,000 net postpaid phone adds for the quarter. Which is their highest in four years. This is their ninth consecutive quarter of year-over-year improvements in net adds, and the third quarter in a row that their postpaid net port has been positive. When it came to prepaid, the company posted 501,000 net losses, and wholesale and affiliate net additions were 673,000. Postpaid churn was 1.67 and postpaid phone churn was slightly lower, coming in at 1.57.
Sprint’s goal for FY 2016 is to reduce their expenses by about $2 billion, and according to their press release this morning, they still believe they are on track to do just that. They’ve been bringing in more money, and spending less, which is good for their bottom line. Especially for a company that was hemorrhaging money for so long. Sprint is definitely in the midst of their turn around, and are bringing in plenty of customers. Surely they aren’t the same numbers as what their competitors are bringing in, but they are still positive numbers. Sprint now has a total of 59 million connections on their network, which still puts them in fourth place (and interestingly enough, they dropped from 60 million at the end of the previous quarter).
It appears that Sprint is having a bit of trouble when it comes to prepaid. Where other companies are doing fairly well, the once king of prepaid – that’d be Boost Mobile and Virgin Mobile – is losing tons of customers, and about half a million just this past quarter. Sprint has been planning to relaunch the two brands and make them more attractive. Hopefully that comes sooner rather than later.