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Sprint third-quarter profits fall 13%
PCS wireless unit sees slightly wider-than-expected loss
By Jeffry Bartash, CBS MarketWatch
Last Update: 9:23 AM ET Oct 20, 1999
NewsWatch
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (CBS.MW) -- Sprint said Wednesday that profits fell
13 percent in the third quarter, undercut by losses related to its Global One
joint venture and efforts to create a broad-based high-speed network.
In the latest quarter,
Sprint said net income
fell to $359 million, or
41 cents a share, from
$415 million, or 47
cents, a year ago. That
was a penny below the
42 cent consensus
estimate of analysts
surveyed by First Call
Corp.
Revenue rose 18 percent to $5.11 billion from $4.34 billion a year earlier for
the nation's No. 2 long-distance carrier, which agreed earlier this month to
be acquired by MCI WorldCom (WCOM: news, msgs).
The move means Sprint will abandon its Global One venture with European
partners France Telecom and Deutsche Telekom. It's unclear, however,
what WorldCom intends to do with Sprint ION, a high-speed network the
carrier is erecting to meet all the communications needs of consumers and
businesses.
Excluding results from Sprint's noncore businesses, earnings per share rose
to 59 cents. See press release.
Long-distance revenue increased 8 percent to $2.71
billion from $2.5 billion. Local-phone sales rose 6
percent to $1.42 billion from $1.34 billion.
Sprint's PCS Group (PCS: news, msgs), which
offers wireless phone service nationwide, added
720,000 new customers, an 87 percent increase over
the 1998 third quarter. The unit ended the quarter
with 4.7 million customers.
The PCS Group lost $619 million, or $1.31 a share,
up from a pro forma loss of $176 million, or $1.04, a
year earlier. That was slightly higher than the $1.23
loss expected by First Call.
Revenue rose to $844 million from $320 million. The
average monthly revenue per subscriber was flat at
$54. |
