Virgin Mobile USA (NYSE: VM) reported preliminary Q4 results today during a Thomas Weisel conference, revealing that it failed to add as many subscribers during the holiday as it wanted.
The company, which went public in October, said in its Q3 outlook that it expected to add as many as 400,000 net subscribers to its pre-paid service in the seasonally strong quarter. But that number now looks completely unreasonable. The company actually added closer to 210,000 subscribers, and only 512,000 net subs for the entire year. It ended the year with nearly 5.1 million total customers.
It did exceed its own financial expectations. Adjusted EBITDA may now reach as much as $100 million for the full year 2007, beating previous expectations of up to $90 million, according to preliminary results. The company’s net loss is also expected to improve, falling to between $3 to $6 million in 2007, compared to a net loss of $36.7 million in 2006.
In early afternoon trading, VMUSA stock fell $1.05 or about 13 percent to $6.99 a share. It will release full financial results for the year in March.
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