This looks pretty good for Sprint, but one starts to wonder how Sprint managed to pull out of the nosedive and start toward profitability right as T-Mobile is set to gobble them up (assuming that the acquisition goes through.)
Interesting things to note here is that they lost 20,000 customers this quarter, saw an increase in data speeds (not listed on quarterlies, that’s another one,) and the average revenue per user is down over last year.
Perhaps I just need some coffee to make these numbers make sense and am letting my bias of seeing people fleeing Sprint and the local stores shutting down wool my eyes. But something doesn’t seem quite right.
Data speed improvements they’re touting lately could correlate to loss of people on the network. Oh, and the effective tax rate appears to have been 71.2% last year and 14.4% now so what the hell… they also increased their depreciation and amortization from 5.9 billion to 6.2 (about $300 million.)
So pre-coffee morning it looks like they may have just changed their depreciation schedule on amortization, or amortized-out some equipment to show an improvement. Assuming a 21 percent corporate tax rate, that comes to ~$63 million just on that amortization increase.
Meh, maybe they’re doing better, but when towns around me the towers have been out since July netting blazing speeds of .5mbit I start thinking they’re doing a numbers game.
But if it’s real, good for them. I remember the risk and loss they took with WiMax, I did not think they would ever get back after that.
The quarterlies can be found here.
