When Sprint Nextel
The numbers are in, and Sprint actually had some nice surprises in store. Analysts hit the top line on the nose (ouch!), but Sprint's $0.29 loss per share helped shares jump as high as 11% in next-day action. Factor in $0.18 of costs per share resulting from the Nextel network shutdown running ahead of schedule, and Sprint's core operations start to look pretty good.
AT&T
Those numbers are just for the Sprint-branded side of the house. Looking deeper, the Nextel brand lost 455,000 contract customers this quarter. Of that number, 228,000 moved over to Sprint in advance of Nextel's planned demise, so you could argue that these migrant callers weren't really new to the company. Without them, Sprint hardly added any new contracts at all.
So I think it's too early to declare a turnaround here. Sprint is preaching to the choir of established fans -- and some of them are leaving. The wireless industry includes a ton of big winners but Sprint is not one of them.