Intellectual Property Law

Both Sprint and Clearwire Post Weak Q1 Reports

By Cynthia Brumfield

Fresh from last week's announcement that they will join hands (along with a group of top cable companies, Intel and Google) to form a new WiMax venture, Sprint-Nextel and Clearwire both issued their Q1 08 earnings results today. The news wasn't good for Sprint-Nextel's wireless business, which lost customers at an accelerating rate during the quarter, and the picture wasn't much better for Clearwire.

Sprint lost $1.1 million subscribers during the quarter, its third consecutive quarter of losses. In contrast, both of Sprint's chief U.S. rivals, AT&T and Verizon continued to gain wireless customers during the quarter -- 1.3 million and 1.5 million respectively. Churn is on the rise, losses more than doubled to $505 million and the company kept alive the prospect that it would spin off its Nextel venture.

Worse, an affiliate of Sprint's, IPCS, filed suit on Monday claiming that the Clearwire venture, a high-profile gamble that Sprint hopes will turn the ship around, violates exclusive agreements it has with Sprint for certain markets.

Clearwire, meanwhile, continued to gain customers, adding 48,000 new subscribers for its broadband wireless service, but the company's heavy costs continued to mount. During the quarter, Clearwire's cash flow loss was $122 million, up from a cash flow loss of $70 million during the year-ago quarter.

Detailed spreadsheets containing financial and operational data for both Sprint-Nextel and Clearwire can be downloaded here at no charge, although registration is required.

Full post as published by IP Democracy on May 13, 2008 (boomark / email).