Sprint today reported the results of the first quarter of its fiscal 2015, and the big news is that it appears as though Sprint has fallen to the No. 4 US carrier spot in terms of total subscribers.
Sprint says that it added a total of 675,000 connections during Q1 FY15, including 310,000 postpaid adds, which is much better than the 181,000 postpaid losses that Sprint suffered in the year-ago quarter. However, Sprint also lost 366,000 prepaid subs in Q1 FY15. Sprint finished the quarter with 56.8 million connections. T-Mobile finished its most recent quarter with 58.9 million subscribers, meaning that T-Mo is now the No. 3 US carrier in subscriber count while Sprint has moved to No. 4.
Turning to other news in Sprint’s report, the big yellow carrier says that while its postpaid phone losses for the quarter were 12,000, it actually saw postpaid phone additions in May and June. That’s notable because it’s the first time in nearly two years that Sprint has reported monthly postpaid phone adds. Sprint also says that postpaid churn for its platform was at a record low rate of 1.56 percent. That number was at 2.05 percent in Q1 FY14 and reached as high as 2.3 percent in Q3 FY14.
Sprint also took some time today to tout its network improvements. The carrier says that it recently launched two channel (2x20MHz) carrier aggregation “on select sites within various markets across the country.” This feature combines spectrum bands to make wider channels in Sprint’s 2.5GHz LTE band, which results in more capacity and is expected to double data speeds. Sprint has seven carrier aggregation-capable devices, including the Samsung Galaxy Note Edge and LG G4.
Finally, Sprint’s financials for the quarter show that it had a net operating revenue of $8 billion and a net loss of $20 million.
Obviously the big news today is that Sprint has ceded the No. 3 US carrier spot to T-Mobile. While that doesn’t really mean much to consumers, it’s interesting to note because Sprint has been No. 3 and T-Mobile has been No. 4 for such a long time. Besides that, though, it appears that Sprint had itself a decent quarter, reporting lowered churn and two months of gains in postpaid phone customers, which are more profitable than tablet users.
I’m listening in to Sprint’s Q1 FY15 conference call and I’ll be sure to update you if the carrier has any interesting tidbits to add. Sprint’s full Q1 FY15 announcement can be found at the link below.