Sprint Q4 Loss Widens On Charges, Lower Revenue

(RTTNews) - Sprint Corp. (S) on Tuesday reported a loss for the fourth quarter that widened from last year on one-time charges and lower revenues.

The company's net loss for the fourth quarter was $554 million or $0.14 per share, compared to net loss of $224 million or $0.06 per share for the year-ago quarter.

The latest quarter's results include charges of $258 million. The charges were mostly related to severance and lease exit costs, including the shutdown of legacy WiMAX service that will free up valuable spectrum and immediately lower network costs.

Adjusting for charges, net loss per share for the quarter would have been relatively flat year-over-year.

Net operating revenues for the quarter declined 3 percent to $8.07 billion from $8.28 billion in the same quarter last year.

The decline in revenue reflects lower wireless and wireline service revenue, partly offset by growth in equipment revenue.

Sprint noted that its postpaid phone net additions of 22,000 in the latets quarter are the third consecutive quarter of positive net additions, and more than both Verizon and AT&T for the first time on record.

Sprint platform wireless net customer additions in the quarter were 447 thousand, down from 1.25 million in the prior-year quarter. The figure includes postpaid net additions of 56 thousand, prepaid net losses of 264 thousand, and wholesale and affiliate net additions of 655 thousand.

Looking ahead to fiscal 2016, the company forecast adjusted EBITDA in a range of $9.5 billion to $10 billion.

Moving forward, Sprint expects a sustainable reduction of $2 billion or more of run rate operating expenses exiting fiscal year 2016. The company has already realized a portion of these reductions with its latest fourth-quarter results, as about half of the approximately $500 million year-over-year reduction in cost of services and SG&A expenses was related to these fiscal year 2016 initiatives.