Last week, in the wake of AT&T's
Today, I'm asking whether this morning's report from Sprint Nextel
Revenue grew 3% year over year, to $8.3 billion, resulting in a lower-than-expected $0.15-per-share net loss. (Analysts had been calling for a $0.22-per-share loss, Bloomberg reports.) Free cash flow declined sharply because of working capital investments and a $100 million pension contribution. Taking all that into account, here's how the three major telcos compare financially:
|
Metric* |
AT&T^ |
Sprint Nextel^ |
Verizon^ |
|---|---|---|---|
| CAPS stars (out of 5) | ** | ** | **** |
| Revenue growth | 1.5% | 2.0% | (1.4%) |
| Normalized net income growth | (10.1%) | Not material | (2.0%) |
| Gross margin | 57.4% | 46.1% | 60.0% |
| Return on capital | 6.9% | (0.2%) | 7.8% |
| Levered free cash flow | $8,736 | $2,802 | $12,570 |
| Dividend yield | 5.60% | No dividend | 5.30% |
| Forward P/E | 13.11 | (5.78) | 16.95 |
| PEG ratio | 3.39 | (1.29) | 2.02 |
Source: Capital IQ, a division of Standard & Poor's.
* All metrics calculated over the trailing 12 months.
^ Except for percentages, all numbers in millions.
Sprint still lags; it hasn't produced a profit and doesn't pay a dividend. But that's not the whole story. For all its financial foibles, customers still like Sprint's network. More than 1.1 million wireless subscribers joined its rolls in the first quarter, its highest haul in five years.
Investors are right to be impressed. Sprint retained customers and attracted new ones in spite of discouraging reports about the relative performance of its WiMAX network and Apple's
Does this make Sprint a stock worth buying? I'm asking you. Please vote in the poll below, then leave a comment to let us know which telecom stock you'd buy.
