Wireless services provider Sprint Nextel
What analysts say:
- Buy, sell, or waffle? A largely noncommittal group of 26 analysts tracks Sprint Nextel; six brave a buy rating, while the other 20 say hold. In our Motley Fool CAPS database, 1,267 of our 110,000 members have rated the stock, giving it a two-star rating overall.
- Revenue. Revenue is estimated to be $9.2 billion this quarter, down 10% from last year.
- Earnings. The average analyst expects $0.03 per share.
What management says:
Well beyond the stage of trying to put a happy face on earnings, Spring Nextel CEO Dan Hesse is pretty much just telling it like it is -- pretty bad. But while Hesse acknowledges the problems, he maintains that the ills are short term and he spends plenty of time telling investors what is going on to improve the business. For starters, the company will offload its next-generation WiMAX network division, including spectrum, into the new Clearwire
To help kick performance up a notch, the company is aggressively pushing unlimited plans and its new Samsung Instinct smartphone, which supposedly is standing up well against the Apple
What management does:
Good thing Sprint is focusing on its core, because the core metrics are pretty rotten and getting markedly worse.
09/06 |
12/06 |
3/07 |
6/07 |
9/07 |
12/07 |
3/08 |
|
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Net Subscriber |
233 |
742 |
568 |
373 |
(60) |
(108) |
(1,087) |
Churn |
2.8% |
2.7% |
2.7% |
2.5% |
2.7% |
2.8% |
3.2% |
ARPU |
$58.64 |
$57.55 |
$56.48 |
$57.19 |
$56.15 |
$54.97 |
$53.32 |
*In thousands. Source: Sprint Nextel.
One Fool says:
With Sprint Nextel spending heavily to market the Instinct launched in June, investors should be particularly interested to see if this product can truly save the company, or at least stem the customer losses and the bleeding of average revenue per user (ARPU). With even Best Buy