Q2 2005 Wireless Carrier Reports and Discussion

[Matt]

Cingular reports tomorrow, and everyone will be reporting within the next three weeks or so.

[Andy]

I'm looking forward to hearing from Cingular. This quarter will be interesting. I think that Cingular's churn went up and that Verizon and T-Mobile both snatched a lot of Cingular customers, but I could be wrong. If I had to guess, I'd guess that T-Mobile's net additions are going to be higher for Q2 than before.

[bobolito]

I agree with Andy on this one.

[Fire14]

I have to agree as well, just too many network issues with the integration & price increases by Cingular in the last qtr.

[bobolito]

Well, here it is. At a glance:

- Net subscriber additions of 1.1 million

- 51.6 million cellular/PCS subscribers at quarter's end

- Postpaid monthly subscriber churn down to 1.8 percent

- 90 percent of minutes now on Cingular's GSM network

- 78 percent of customers GSM-equipped

- Converted more than 4 million former AT&T Wireless subscribers to new Cingular plans.

- Revenues were $8.6 billion

- Operating expenses were $8.1 billion

- Operating income was $504 million

- ARPU in the quarter was $50.43, up 1.7 percent from the first quarter



http://www.prnewswire.com/news/index...4070749&EDATE=


I guess we were all proven wrong. Even though net additions were about the same as the first quarter, overall the numbers are better than the first quarter.

But at the pace they are going, I don't know when they are going to finish transitioning all former AWS customers.

[wgray8231]

I was posting the Cingular numbers and link, but Bobo got in there while I was editing my post. One stinkin' minute!

[bobolito]

Nobody beats the bobo!

[dallison]

Originally Posted by bobolito

I agree with Andy on this one.

me too, they need to straighten some things out

[dallison]

damn those numbers arent too bad at all

[Matt]

Total churn was 2.2%
ARPU was up sequentially, but down 5.7% from last year's Q2.
Net income was $147M, up from a loss of $240M on Q1 2005.

[Fire14]

Wow, that blew me away from my thoughts, thanks for the post bobolito.

It's interesting to see they have 78% of customers now on GSM vs TDMA, guess there goal of getting the majority of people on GSM is going as planned. And it seems they are going along at 1.25 Million AWE customers being migrated a Qtr. I am sure this is in line with what they were looking for, since they don't want all the Blue customers & TDMA customers migrated too soon/fast, if i remember correctly to prevent network overload. I wonder if they have been slowly shutting down TDMA in certain area's to give them the needed spectrum.

[Andy]

Wow, those numbers nearly rocked me off my chair
They are much better than I expected. Even their churn numbers are not as high as I though they would be. I guess all those people complaining about cingular are not actually leaving the company

[wgray8231]

Originally Posted by dallison

damn those numbers arent too bad at all

Those numbers also include my parents and siblings. That's 4 lines of service that moved from VZW to Cingular plus a 5th new line.

It didn't save them any money, but my sister has a lot of friends on Cingular and they got 7p nights for $7/month.

[EdwardP]

Deutsche Telekom's (T-Mobile) first half year report is scheduled to be reported on August 11 (with an indication that it was subject to change).


Per:

http://www.telekom3.de/en-p/inve/9-f...r-2005-ar.html

[danny boi]

Originally Posted by Matt

Total churn was 2.2%
ARPU was up sequentially, but down 5.7% from last year's Q2.
Net income was $147M, up from a loss of $240M on Q1 2005.

Most internet reports show Cingular to have 2.2% churn this past quarter.

Cingular's own press release posts 1.8%...( postpay)

Does Cingular always post their churn rates as "postpay" or just this time?

[Fire14]

Originally Posted by YourDaddy

Most internet reports show Cingular to have 2.2% churn this past quarter.

Cingular's own press release posts 1.8%...( postpay)

Does Cingular always post their churn rates as "postpay" or just this time?

They were trying to show the difference between Prepaid & Post Paid churn because they seemed to have a bigger amount or Prepaid customers, mainly TDMA ones that left & I guess they wanted to show the breakdown to make it look more impressive.

As for this time only, they did it last quarter as well.
Per Last quarter the churn was 2.2% with 1.9% being post paid. They didn't report it like this in the 1st Quarter though & they went to a different reporting format this year, in line with other carriers.

[Matt]

It is common to report two churn numbers. Total churn is the one that is a bit more accurate since it accounts for prepaid customers and contract customers. Prepay churn is commonly around 5%, but it is a much smaller customer base - usually 10% of the subscribers (Approx).

[Matt]

Nextel reported today:

http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/050721/215385.html?.v=1

Highlights:

Second quarter subscriber additions of 763,000 consisted of 550,000 subscribers of Nextel branded service and 213,000 subscribers of Boost Mobile(TM) branded prepaid service. Nextel ended the second-quarter 2005 with approximately 17.8 million subscribers - 16.1 million Nextel subscribers and 1.7 million Boost Mobile subscribers - up 23% from the 14.5 million total subscribers at the end of second quarter 2004.

Nextel ARPU in the second quarter was $68, an increase of $1 over the first quarter. Customer churn improved to 1.4% in the second quarter, down from 1.5% in the first quarter. MOU 900

Boost ARPU $39 churn 6.2%

Note Nextel's reported churn of 1.4% is postpay only since it doesn't include the Boost churn. Total churn would be a few ticks higher, maybe 1.7% or so (just guessing).

[jones]

Originally Posted by YourDaddy

Most internet reports show Cingular to have 2.2% churn this past quarter.

Cingular's own press release posts 1.8%...( postpay)

Does Cingular always post their churn rates as "postpay" or just this time?

Most Churn are from Prepay
since they Don't have contracts
and are Not Subject to Termination Fee.

[larry]

Originally Posted by Matt

Nextel reported today:

http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/050721/215385.html?.v=1

Highlights:

Second quarter subscriber additions of 763,000 consisted of 550,000 subscribers of Nextel branded service and 213,000 subscribers of Boost Mobile(TM) branded prepaid service. Nextel ended the second-quarter 2005 with approximately 17.8 million subscribers - 16.1 million Nextel subscribers and 1.7 million Boost Mobile subscribers - up 23% from the 14.5 million total subscribers at the end of second quarter 2004.

Nextel ARPU in the second quarter was $68, an increase of $1 over the first quarter. Customer churn improved to 1.4% in the second quarter, down from 1.5% in the first quarter. MOU 900

Boost ARPU $39 churn 6.2%

Note Nextel's reported churn of 1.4% is postpay only since it doesn't include the Boost churn. Total churn would be a few ticks higher, maybe 1.7% or so (just guessing).

Once again Nextel has put up some good consistent numbers. Sprint is taking on a good company here.