Sprint Nextel posts wider 2Q loss

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- The Overland Park, Kan.-based company reported a loss of $384 million, or 13 cents a share, in the three months ended June 30. That's larger than its loss of $344 million, or 12 cents a share, a year ago.

Sprint's revenue fell 10% to $8.14 billion from $9.06 billion a year ago.

Analysts surveyed by Reuters had expected a loss of 2 cents a share on lower revenue of $8.12 billion. Analysts typically exclude one-time items from their earnings estimates. The company didn't report an adjusted earnings figure that excludes one-time items.

Wireless revenues fell 9% to $7 billion as the company shed another 257,000 subscribers during the quarter, a small increase from the 182,000 lost in the first quarter.

The losses included 991,000 valuable customers who sign annual contracts, which was an improvement from the 1.25 million lost in the previous quarter but worse than the 780,000 shed a year ago.

Making up some of the difference for Sprint were net gains of 938,000 prepaid customers on its iDEN network.

Most of the iDEN increase came from Sprint's Boost Mobile prepaid subsidiary, which earlier this year began offering unlimited calling, texting and data services for $50 a month. Unlike postpaid customers, prepaid subscribers don't sign contracts and generally generate less revenue.

Chief Executive Officer Dan Hesse said he was gladdened to see slower losses of subscribers and the continued gain of prepaid customers, but acknowledged, "we are not satisfied that we lost a quarter of a million customers in the quarter."