Sprint- Adding New Prepaid Customers, Losing Contract Customers
The financial woes at Sprint continue, as evidenced by the quarterly results recently announced. Sprint was able to add 764,000 prepaid customers during the quarter but saw another 1.25 million subscribers, the lifeblood for any carrier, removed from the books. Sprint posted a net loss of $594 million and blamed their continuing problems on the weak economy.
It is apparent that Sprint is going to lean just as heavily as Palm on the release of the Palm Pre smartphone to stop the downspin. They’d better hurry up and get that sucker released is all I can say.
Sprint CEO Dan Hesse hinted at the possibility that they are considering letting a third party take over managing their network, a sure indication of just how bad things are at Sprint.
Hesse said Sprint is evaluating the idea of having a third-party company manage some elements of its network to cut costs. But if it decides to go this route, Sprint would be careful to keep network control, he said.
“We would still have management responsibility and ownership of the network,” he said while declining to comment on media reports that Sprint is in talks with Ericsson to have the network equipment maker manage its wireless broadcast towers.
(via Reuters)
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They could do well to learn from India’s Bharti Airtel which has outsourced network management and even customer service to companies like Ericsson,Nokia and IBM allowing them to concentrate on brand building and other ventures. They are not only India;s No 1 carrier with more than 97 million customers but are also very profitable company. Might help Sprint to cut losses
I hate to say it but some trends in this industry are written on the wall and people simply refuse to believe them, or just prefer to go with their hearts.
I have a long list – like hearing how Android is netbook heaven or that Android is going to dominate the smartphones market and then on the other hand still not believing that Android is going to excel specifically for voice enabled cellular MIDs. Same goes for the recent Ubuntu hype – I want to see people running their apps on that. If it is not 100% consumer ready then geeks are going to love it but not my mom on her netbook. And the list goes on and on.
And now it happens all over again with Palm. The company is more than half dead, the device is going to be ok, but there isn’t enough energy to make it happen. The choice to take Sprint killed it a few months ago, and just to emphasize it – look at the numbers about RIM from yesterday. When you get the right carrier it can make a mediocre device king. A failing carrier will just ruin whatever possibility Palm had.
Then again, Palm is most likely to be purchased by a company like RIM or Nokia, who can really use the webOS to replace their current technology. So for the consumers this will mean one less competitor on an already too fragmented market, and a better solution with one of the leading device types.
Tal
@ TaI
It’s a good thing that sometimes opinions and speculation do not matter, yours are not the exception. Most analyst are in agreement that the Pre will do very well. Sprint has the largest and fastest mobile broadband network, Sprint has the least expensive service plans as well. Compared to Verizon and At&t, On average a Sprint customer will save $350 a year. Sprint was the smart choice.
@oneAwake: This is what preplexes me too…I save so much money with Sprint over a comparable Verizon or ATT plan and Sprint works great for me. Following the news and the blogosphere makes me feel like the only who see any good in Sprint.
There are many angles not being visited, losing a contract customer does not necessarily mean they lost said customer. It could be, the contract has expired and that customer is going month to month choosing not to renew their contract. Example, I have 7 lines with Sprint, only 3 are under contract, the other 4 have been month to month for almost a year. Also, it is hip/popular to attack Sprint, you never hear the truth about Verizon’s and At&t customer loss. Tmobile is a smaller company than Sprint with a worse 3G network than At&t, yet they get a pass. Do not buy into the doom and gloom about Sprint and Palm, not too long ago At&t was in a worse situation, Apple was in a similar situation before the ipod saved them.
I have been using Sprint for over a decade…and have been very happy with it! Now, granted, I’ve lived in 3 large metropolitan cities while being a subscriber, but I’ve also travelled quite a bit, and rarely lost coverage. My personal experience just doesn’t jibe with those who complain about Sprint.
Sad to watch, Sprint works so well for me. But I wonder about Sprint as a long term choice even if the Pre worked a miracle on Sprint. Can someone help with understand the future of CDMA in the U.S. according to Sprint vs. Verizon? Sprint seems wholly committed to CDMA with their future 4G plans revolving around WiMax. Verizon on the other hand has 4G plans rooted in an agressive LTE rollout. I thought LTE was a GSM based technology. Does this mean the largest U.S. player in CDMA (Verizon) is opening the door to GSM? Help? Anyone?
Make no mistake about it, CDMA is not going away. Not only is CDMA used in North America, it is used in, the Asia – Pacific, Caribbean – Latin America, Europe – Russia
Africa – Middle East. Yes LTE is a GSM like technology, which begs the question, what did Verizon choose LTE? Especially since CDMA has far superior voice qualify and is more stable. I believe LTE is going to run into the same problems as GSM in America. That is why Verizon plans to integrate EVDO with their LTE, and At&t plans to use Wimax for it’s rural landline customers. Currently Wimax is used in over 100 countries. I predict that some of the companies that have pledged to go LTE will ultimately change to Wimax once they see the benefits. Just like when Sprint was the first to go CDMA in America against the grain, Verizon soon switched their tone and went CDMA as well. By the time LTE is rolled out, Sprint is projected to have over 100 million customers on Wimax. What I find Interesting, is that Verizon did a study which showed, of all the US mobile phone users who travel abroad, at least 60% travel to CDMA areas, I believe that is one of the reasons Verizon will hold onto EVDO.
I don’t know anyone who has ever roamed with their CDMA phone abroad. I know a ton of people who use their GSM phones abroard (with cheap pre-paid SIM cards).
That said, I used to be a happy, satisfied Sprint customer with my Treo 700p and only switched to AT&T because I wanted the iPhone.
@oneAwake
While opinions and speculations don’t matter it still makes me happy to express them and at least from my point of view to see people who are reading the map so horribly wrong.
I can’t tell my wife that she was wrong, but I sure can try here :)
I’m pretty happy with Sprint right now. I used to be with T-Mobile, and the same thing happens with them – Verizon and AT&T are much bigger, so why go with the smaller carrier etc etc.
Well, I’m a budget customer and I make no bones about it. Given a choice between $75 for an iPhone or $30 for an HTC Touch Pro, guess which one I’d choose.
Sprint’s only concrete problem is customer service, which I’ve been an exception to until now (2 years and counting).