Sprint reported quarterly revenue of $6.707 billion, up 5.6% over the same period last year. Net income for the first quarter was $222 million versus net income of $1.67 billion for the same period last year, which included a gain of $1.31 billion from a discontinued operation and a cumulative effect of change in accounting of $258 million. Some highlights:
Sprint PCS
- Net operating revenues rose to $3.437 billion, up 16.7% compared to a year earlier.
- First quarter net subscriber additions include 414,000 post-paid retail, 420,000 from wholesale channels and 138,000 from affiliates. At the end of the period, PCS wireless was serving a total of 21.3 million customers.
- Churn was 2.9% this quarter compared to 3.1% reported a year ago, and 2.7% in the 2003 fourth quarter.
- At the end of the period more than six million customers were subscribing to Sprint PCS data services, including more than four million Sprint PCS Vision customers. For the full quarter, data contributed just over 6% to overall ARPU.
- CAPEX for Q1 was $412 million, compared with $187 million a year ago.
For Sprint's Local Division
- Net operating revenues were $1.506 billion, a decline of 1.7% from a year earlier. Operating income was $446 million, down 3.5%
- Total access lines declined 2.2% from the year-ago period.
- The local division ended the quarter with nearly 350,000 DSL customers.
- CAPEX was $209 million, down 25.6%
For Sprint's Global Markets Division
- Net operating revenues declined nearly 7% to $1.91 billion from $2.05 billion a year ago. Adjusted Operating Income for the quarter was $23 million compared to $4 million in the year-ago period
- In the quarter, total voice revenues decreased 8% from the year-ago period. Consumer voice revenues declined 21% while business voice revenues, including wholesale and affiliates, declined by nearly 5% from the year-ago period.
- Data revenues decreased 2% from the first quarter of 2003, and 2% sequentially. Frame Relay, ATM and Private Line services each grew modestly on a sequential basis. In the quarter, dedicated IP revenue rose 10% year- over-year and 8% from the fourth quarter of 2003, driven by gains in Global IP service. Overall IP revenues continue to be impacted by declining dial IP usage and Sprint's exit from the Web Hosting business.
Overall Guidance
- On April 23, 2004, Sprint will recombine its two tracking stocks, and each share of PCS stock will automatically convert into 0.5 shares of FON stock.
- Total net operating revenues are now expected to grow 3 to 4% in 2004 versus previous guidance of 2 to 3%.
- Sprint's total net debt now stands at $16.4 billion, down by $296 million for Q1.
