Sprint Corporation (NYSE:S) released its fourth quarter earnings results this morning before opening bell, posting losses of 26 cents on revenue of $9.14 billion. Analysts had been expecting the company to report losses of 33 cents per share on revenue of $7.75 billion.
Breaking down Sprint’s results
The carrier said operating losses for the quarter improved 22%, rising to $576 million. Adjusted EBITDA was $1.15 billion, a nearly 40% improvement over the previous year’s $300 million. For the full year, the company reported combined annual operating losses of $1.9 billion and adjusted EBITDA of $5.4 billion.
Sprint Corporation (NYSE:S) reported a new record in annual Sprint platform wireless service revenue, posting $28.6 billion—a year over year growth of more than 5%. The fourth quarter marked the 15th in a row in which the carrier’s wireless service revenue grew, rising to $7.2 billion year over year. Sprint also reported the best-ever annual Sprint platform post-paid average revenue per user, which was $64.07.
The company reported a new record in Sprint platform subscribers for the quarter, which rose to 53.9 million. That includes 682,000 total net additions during the quarter and 58,000 Sprint platform postpaid net additions during the quarter.
Sprint Corporation (NYSE:S) reported 20.5 million smartphones sold during the full year with a record 95% of quarterly postpaid handset sales being smartphones. In addition, the company continued rolling out its network upgrades. It reported over 200 million people covered by its 4G LTE network and made its Sprint Spark available in 14 of the biggest cities in the U.S. The carrier also launched its Sprint Family plans, which “redefines traditional wireless family plans.”
Sprint guides for 2014
This year, Sprint Corporation (NYSE:S) said it expects adjusted EBITDA to be between $6.5 billion and $6.7 billion. The company expects to spend about $8 billion in capital expenditures.
The carrier said it plans to deploy Sprint Spark in approximately 100 of the biggest cities in the U.S. over the next three years. By the end of this year, the company expects 100 million Americans to have access to Sprint Spark, which the company describes as “a combination of advanced network and device technology with the potential to surpass wireless speeds of any U.S. network provider, capable of delivering 50 – 60 megabits per second peak speeds today with potential speeds three times as fast by late 2015.”
