Sprint May Soon be Out of Financial Worries

Sprint has been seen as the fourth national wireless provider as well as a company in some difficulty for a long time now. Ever since their merger with Nextel, the company has been struggling to find its place for several years, and seen its customer base shrink. In fact, 2011 was its worst year yet with a reported loss of $1.3 billion, which is quite staggering. So whenever analysts and pundits talk about Sprint, it's rarely in good terms, and often includes negative words to show their precarious status. Yet, new numbers may show that the company has started to rebound now, and may still be on the road to salvation, with an increase in user base and revenue.

In the first quarter of 2012, it seems as if their customer base grew by five percent. This is because of almost 1.1 million new net customers joining the Sprint networks, mostly as cell phone users, due mostly for some of its Android handsets. In fact, it would appear as if the company has had more new subscribers so far in 2012 than AT&T did, which has historically seen strong numbers, especially since the release of the iPhone in 2007. The same is true for Verizon, and even though they too have the popular smartphone, Sprint still managed to outdo them. The company acquired the iPhone in October of last year, and it certainly had an impact of retention, and perhaps even on new activations as well.

Sprint does have a long road to climb however and it's always easy to discount them. Certainly a strong growth in customer adoption during one quarter is not enough to change anything big in the predictions that can be made about the company, but it's a start. Its stock price hit the bottom floor in 2011, but has now started rising again thanks to some of the good news. The company announced that it should see profits again by 2014, thanks to the lucrative deal it has with Apple, their new Android devices, along with their foray into 4G and WiMax technologies. As Sprint is seen gaining momentum, this can be done mostly at the detriment of other carriers, since smartphone penetration is already so high in the U.S. The simple fact is that the market for new customers is low, because few people out there still want a smartphone without already having one.

Of course, the company isn't clear of danger yet. Nextel has been a significant problem for Sprint, and dumping its older technology has been on the list of things to do in order to reach a profit again. In 2010, they announced that they were phasing out the older network, and are now well on their way to doing that, which will save the companies billions. Sprint has also started investing in Asian countries like China, and is expected to invest in the quickly growing country. They also announced plans for India, although nothing seems certain as of yet.