Sprint lowers churn, adds 1.1 million net wireless customers in Q 2011

Sprint announced its quarterly earnings for the period of January to March 2011 today. The #3 wireless carrier had its best ever postpaid churn of 1.81%, which is down from 2.15% in the same quarter of 2010. Sprint also added new 1.1 million new customers and now has over 51 million customers at the end of the quarter. The customer breakdown is as follows:

• 51 million customers total customers
  • 33.0 million postpaid subscribers (27.4 M via CDMA, 5.3M on iDEN, and 317,000 Nextel PowerSource users who utilize both networks)
  • 13.1 million prepaid subscribers (9.9 M on CDMA and 3.2 M on iDEN)
  • approximately 4.9 million wholesale and affiliate subscribers
• 1.1 million net wireless customers
  • net additions of 732,000 retail subscribers
  • net additions of 389,000 wholesale and affiliate subscribers.

Sprint also boosted wireless revenue to $6.6 billion, a 3% increase both over the previous quarter and year over year. Wireless ARPU (average revenue per user) also increased year over year from $55 to $56. Growth in ARPU was attributed to an increase in the number of customers who subscribe to a premium data plan.

Overall, Sprint posted sold earnings in a quarter which saw the launch of the iPhone 4 on Verizon and the announcement of the merger of AT&T and T-Mobile. Speaking of merger, Sprint CEO Dan Hesse used the earnings conference call to once again voice his opposition and warn of the competitive danger of allowing AT&T acquire T-Mobile and create a duopoly in the US wireless market. You can find the earnings call information here.

[Via Sprint]