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Technology Stocks : Qualcomm Incorporated (QCOM) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John F. Dowd who wrote (65737)	2/1/2000 4:42:00 PM
From: William Hunt	Respond to of 152472

Thread ---How do you spell CDMA ? Sprint PCS--Good Article Dow Jones Newswires -- February 1, 2000 Sprint PCS Expects New 700,000 Customers In 1Q NEW YORK -- Sprint Corp.'s (FON) local and long-distance group and its Sprint PCS Group (PCS) wireless business soundly beat fourth quarter earnings expectations Tuesday, as the company continued to trim costs and add customers to both operations. While profit fell for the FON Group to $431 million in the fourth quarter from $454 million last year due primarily to spending on the company's high-speed Internet and data network named ION, the company still posted income from continuing operations of 49 cents a share. Analysts had expected 38 cents a share, including income from discontinued operations, according to a First Call/Thomson Financial survey. On the wireless PCS Group side, Sprint posted a fourth quarter loss of 75 cents a share, compared with last year's loss of 76 cents a share. The wireless operation had a record quarter with 1 million subscriber additions, company executives said in a conference call. The company expects to add 700,000 new wireless subscribers in the first quarter of this year. The wireless PCS Group finished the year with 5.7 million customers, said Chief Executive Andrew Sukawaty, and a market share of 7%, up from 4% a year ago. The PCS Group posted a loss of $706 million, compared with $616 million in the year-ago period. The company has spent billions building out its wireless coverage and increasing its network capacity. The company expects to spend $2.5 billion on network additions and upgrades in 2000, which is about what it spent in the past year. "We feel very positive about our position," Sukawaty said. "The wireless industry continues to be an open-ended opportunity." Sprint is being acquired by MCI WorldCom Inc. (WCOM) in a marriage of the nation's second-largest and third-largest long-distance phone companies. Sprint executives said Tuesday they expect the deal will receive Federal Communications Commission approval during the third quarter. Sprint's wireless properties were the main impetus for the merger, and the company is showing encouraging signs of growth. Sprint PCS is expected to reach EBITDA breakeven in 2000. Sukawaty said the company continues to work to improve customer retention. Sprint PCS has a churn rate of about 3%, and Sukawaty said he expects the company's churn rate will remain above the level of more established wireless carriers for some time. On a more positive note, Sukawaty said the company is seeing a larger number of its customers purchase mobile phones with Web-browsing capability. Wireless data usage is expected to generate about $2.7 billion in revenue industrywide in 2000, but increase to more than $13 billion by 2004. Sprint PCS has been leading the way in wireless Internet applications, analysts say. Sprint's PCS Group reported a loss of $706 million in the fourth quarter, compared with a loss of $647 million a year ago. Salomon Smith Barney analyst Jack Grubman reiterated his buy rating on Sprint PCS stock, setting an 18-month price target of $150. In a morning note, he said, "Our initial read of the quarter is that the results were modestly stronger on the top line and in line with our EBITDA loss estimate, excluding one-time events." Sprint's FON Group surprised some analysts with its long-distance results, with long-distance revenue rising 7.4% to $2.7 billion in the fourth quarter from last year. Local service revenue rose 6.9% from a year ago, to $1.48 billion. "Long-distance revenue posted solid growth, a positive sign that the long-distance price erosion we have been witnessing is in fact beginning to stabilize," Jeffries & Co. analyst Gregory Miller wrote in a morning note. "Long-distance should grow 7% to 8% in the coming year." Sprint Fon Group executives said they expect competition to increase in the long-distance segment during the year with the entry of regional Bell phone companies into the market. Conversely, they expect wholesale long-distance revenue to increase as the Bells buy time from companies like Sprint. The Sprint FON group's earnings were boosted by the company's nickel-night long-distance plan, company executives said, and revenue from local-phone operations were pushed by strong customer acceptance of bundled services. The company is seeing 5,000 customers a day requesting bundled services, executives said. Miller said he anticipates local-service revenues will rise 4% to 6% in 2000. And Sprint FON Group will begin aggressively marketing its high-speed Internet and data ION service in select markets in the next few months. The company said it will spend as much as $700 million on expanding the network during 2000 and hopes to reach more than 1 million households. That spending will dilute 2000 earnings per share by 50 cents to 60 cents a share, but Miller still said he expects the company to meet the 2000 earnings estimate of $1.95 a fully diluted share. He also said he expects total revenue growth of about 8% to $18.5 billion for 2000. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- BEST WISHES BILL

To: John F. Dowd who wrote (65737)	2/1/2000 5:29:00 PM
From: mts362	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 152472

QCOM trading down 2 after hours. Anybody know why? Anyone have a guess? 2 points on a $140 stock in a non-liquid afterhours market is not even worth thinking about.