Sprint Beats T-Mobile in Prepaid Net Adds for Q4

Sprint is finally being rewarded for the promotion it held in December wherein the telecom giant offered to cut customers’ bills to half if they made a switch from Verizon Wireless or AT&T Mobility to Sprint. Sprint’ CEO Marcelo Claure said at the 2015 Citi Global Internet, Media & Telecommunications Conference that the company’s cumulative net adds had come close to 1 million in the fourth quarter. If compared to the fourth quarter of 2013, the company had added merely 477,000 new subscribers by that period.

Roughly 400,000 of the new subscribers that joined the Sprint family were prepaid net adds. This substantially outdoes the fourth-quarter prepaid net adds of T-Mobile. T-Mobile also shared that it had 266,000 branded prepaid net adds during the fourth quarter.

Among other things, Claure also accepted that the highest churn in the industry was also Sprint’s. However, the company is diligently working on the efforts geared towards controlling that problem. Sharing the plans for the rest of the year, Claure said that the company will be continuing with its popular promotion "cut your bill in half" during 2015. The company’s major focus will lie on its marketing message surrounding that offer.

The CEO of Sprint appreciated the device leasing program of the company. He claims that the trend initiated by the company is quite disruptive for the telecom industry. The iPhone for Life is a program that provides customers a lease period of 30 months, at the same time reducing the monthly cost of the iPhone to $18 for the 16 GB iPhone 6 or $23 for the 16 GB iPhone 6 Plus. 

Other news shared by Sprint says that it has secured three new vendor financing deals for 2.5 GHz network gear totalling $1.8 billion. The deals include an agreement for $800 million with Nokia Networks that is due to mature in June 2021, a deal with Samsung for $750 million due for maturation in December 2022, and a $250 million deal with Alcatel-Lucent that is set to mature in December 2021.

Sprint also boomed its credit relationship with Export Development Canada by $300 million and amended the terms of its existing secured equipment credit facility.