Sprint/Nextel's 4th Qtr isn't looking good

The Minnesota Timberwolves don't do very good in the 4th quarter either!!! :rotfl:

 

Sprint Nextel Corp. (S) after Monday's closing bell said it still expects 2006 adjusted operating income before depreciation and amortization of $12.6 billion to $12.9 billion. The company sees 2006 consolidated operating revenues of $41 billion to $42 billion. Sprint expects total capital expenditures of $7 billion to $7.3 billion. During the fourth quarter, Sprint added 742,000 total net subscribers, ending the period with a base of 53.1 million. For 2007, the company sees adjusted OIBDA of $11 billion to $11.5 billion, on operating revenue of $41 billion to $42 billion. The company sees capital expenditures of about $8.5 billion.

 

I certainly wouldn't call it their worst quarter of the year. Where do they get this stuff from?

 

Now to the real news:

AP
Sprint to Cut 5,000 Jobs; Stock Plunges
Monday January 8, 7:01 pm ET
By Bruce Meyerson, AP Technology Writer
Sprint to Cut 5,000 Jobs After Disclosing 4Q Loss of 300,000 Monthly Subscribers

RESTON, Va. (AP) -- Sprint Nextel Corp. reported Monday that its cell phone business suffered a net loss of 300,000 monthly subscribers in the fourth quarter and that the struggling wireless company will cut 5,000 jobs.
The company's stock plunged more than 8 percent after the financial update, which included a 2007 outlook shy of many Wall Street forecasts.

Sprint said it expects its 2006 results to be in line with its previous guidance, with full-year revenue of $41 billion to $41.5 billion and adjusted operating income before depreciation and amortization of $12.6 billion to $12.9 billion. On average, analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial are forecasting 2006 earnings of $1.26 per share on sales of $41.53 billion.

For 2007, the company now expects operating revenue of $41 billion to $42 billion in 2007. Analysts are looking for earnings of $1.32 per share on sales of $42.04 billion.

During the fourth quarter, Sprint added 742,000 net subscribers, ending the year with a customer base of 53.1 million. Those numbers include wholesale subscribers to other brands of cell phone service carried over the Sprint network such as Virgin Mobile.

The fourth quarter net additions included 876,000 from both wholesalers and affiliate companies that sell Sprint Nextel services, as well as 171,000 new customers for Boost, a wholly owned subsidiary geared toward younger consumers.

Offsetting the gains, however, was a net decline of 306,000 direct subscribers driven by a continuing exodus of Nextel subscribers amid frustration over worsening service quality. The Sprint brand subscriber base grew during the quarter, but not enough to offset the Nextel drop.
The first quarter will see a continuation of the net decline in Sprint and Nextel customers, but the trend will turn positive for the second quarter and the full year, management said in a conference call, asserting that investments in adding caller capacity to the Nextel network began paying off in late 2006.

"We started to see positive indications in the fourth quarter," said Chairman and Chief Executive Gary Forsee said in an interview, noting that blocked calls on the Nextel network were at the lowest level ever.

The planned job cuts, most of them expected in the first quarter, will reduce the size of Sprint's work force to just below 60,000 positions. The cuts are expected to be applied across the company's operations.

Sprint Nextel also said it expects to incur about $700 million in merger integration and severance costs in 2007, the bulk of them coming in the first half of the year.

"Our plans for 2007 have a growth story, but that growth story won't happen until the second half of the year," Forsee said.

The update came after the close of Monday's regular stock session. Sprint's shares slid $1.64 to $18 in extended trading after rising 43 cents, or 2.2 percent, to close at $19.64 on the New York Stock Exchange.


http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/070108/sprint_outlook.html?.v=10&printer=1

 

Losing 300,000 monthly subscribers in the fourth quarter
is a lot, maybe they should shutdown Nextel.

 

I wonder who picked up those losses!

 

Probably VZW.
This could be a sign of Market Saturation.

 

At&T will be telling on the 24th. The store by me did 50% more than they did last year, I also heard the VZW store which is around the corner from them was only up 5%. My feeling is that it could be a split. Saturation, I would say it has a couple more years to happen.

 

Nextel was the worst thing that could happen to Sprint. They have certainly doomed the company.

By the way, it was 306,000 net loss for the whole 4th quarter. It is not monthly.

 

The IDEN part is certainly making it difficult for the company but I still think it will be a good move in the long run. Sprint would have never been able to expand coverage the way they have done without Nextel. They wouldn't have the budget to build all these new sites from scratch and even if they did they would have had to battle NIMBY's and all that other red tape. This way the cost of adding a new cell is much less expensive and also much quicker. Plus they can also build them together and save on monthly lease costs.

Personally I don't care how many new subscribers my carrier is adding or losing. The important thing for me and others to consider is which carrier works best for them and has the best offerings that suits their particular needs. If I have great coverage and a great plan with all the features that I need then why does it matter how many customers my carrier has?

 

Any one has any comparisons of their coverage pre and after the merger? What I mean is their natural not the one that includes roaming.

 

Most of the post-merger coverage additions are enhancements in the major markets that already had coverage so that won't show up on the maps too well. But there have been some new roads and highways that previously didn't have CDMA that do now thanks to the merger.

 

that's what i said 300,000 monthly customers in the 4th quarter
were lost.

 

All on the IDEN side.

 

Oh I see.....you're just not using the right word. Those are postpaid customers, not "monthly customers." You make it sound like they lost 300,000 per month!

 

Then I wonder, why hasn't Sprint been able to pull those customers to the CDMA side rather than have them defect to other carriers? It's not like they are going to find a better PTT option elsewhere. Maybe its because they are blaming Sprint for Nextel's degradation and they rather go elsewhere? Who knows?

 

You got me. Sprint has a lot of good offerings that other carriers don't necessarily have. 6PM N&W for $5 and 7PM N&W for free. Largest voice and data network when you include roaming partners. Ability to use data roaming for free on most newer handsets (I hear Verizon doesn't allow that yet). EV-DO Rev. A rolling out in more markets. Faster data speeds than GSM carriers. Ability to force roaming on handsets and use other networks for free. Quickly improving coverage on the CDMA side. Better selection of handsets than they used to. So I don't know what else they need to do to attract customers (aside from customer service issues). They just never seem to get a break.

 

True they can't seem to get a break. But I have to say, they are giving the farm away., how long can they keep the forced roaming going and keep paying the others it only means lost revenue and the turn to worse. My thought is to get the people on the netwrok and in a few months after all come in and are caught then shut the forced raoming to off (with acceptions for certain areas). I realy do not see this going on for long or else their stock is going to take a big dive and no one knows where it could end up.

 

I don't think the roaming thing is a big deal. Most customers probably never even use roaming and many probably don't even know how to force roaming on a phone. lol I can't even remember the last time I had to roam.

 

Good I would hate to see something happen to Sprint, we all can't afford the consequences as others would take advantage and steal from us. But I have to say, it seems a lot of the Sprint sales reps are making this to be known so it is only a matter of time before the majority get to know about it. They want ro sell after all and need to assure the potential new customer of solid coverage.

 

Many were Sprint customers "years ago" and refuse to go back. Many simply like the sound of the TDMA air interface better than CDMA, not to mention the ease of changing phones that SIM cards offer. Then again some of these Nextel customers are in the old NPI markets, which are Sprint affiliate markets for the most part. And that says enough on its own.

 

I just can't understand why someone would like the sound of IDEN better than Sprint's CDMA. Even Verizon sounds better than Nextel, but Sprint has always sounded better than Verizon!

That's correct. Plus Sprint phones are very smart to prefer Sprint's network all the time unless you configure it not to.

 

Nextel's text messaging system has always sucked. Just about a year ago there was a period of time where whether or not you were going to get a text was a crapshoot.

 

Yep there's still a lot of resentment out there from people who were unhappy customers back in the day when Sprint's network was small and they had to pay big $$ for roaming. I'm talking like 5-9 years ago. They don't realize that Sprint is much, much better now.

 

But how long can resentment last? I think people forget a lot faster than that. Cingular was able to hold on to most AT&T Wireless customers. Remember AT&T Wireless did far worse than Sprint has ever done. But then again, that maybe because the Cing/AWS merger was between compatible networks and service actually improved immediately. In my area service for Cingular users improved tenfold within a couple of weeks after the merger. I remember I was always crying because I could never get a signal at work, thanks to the T-Mobile network. The AWS/Cing merger happened on Oct-26-04 and on Nov-4-04 I had full service at work thanks to the home-on-home roaming. In other areas service improved for AT&T Wireless customers even before the merger, such as in CT and MA.

 

I think phone offerings has become their weakness. They need to come out with some of the latest and coolest gadgets before other carriers get them. Not 1.5 years after the fact. One example is too many Sanyos in their lineup for too long. Sanyos are certainly good quality phones but are perceived to be boring and not popular enough with the younger crowd. Nobody else offers Sanyo so they don't have the cool factor going for them. I think not getting the RAZR 2 years ago when everyone else did was where they went wrong. They have managed to bring out a few like the Samsung A900 and LG Fusic but they need to do more.

 

Those are the exact words by sprint
so Sprint is Not using the right words then.


RESTON, Va. (AP) -- Sprint Nextel Corp. reported Monday that its cell phone business suffered a net loss of 300,000 monthly subscribers in the fourth quarter and that the struggling wireless company will cut 5,000 jobs.
The company's stock plunged more than 8 percent after the financial update, which included a 2007 outlook shy of many Wall Street forecasts.