Sprint Capex up 58% to $1.9 billion in Q2 2013, driven by 4G LTE

Sprint Capex in second quarter 2013 rose 58 percent to $1.9 billion from $1.2 in the same period last year.

In the first quarter of 2013, Sprint had invested $1.81 billion towards Capex.

Out of the $1.89 billion Capex in Q2, Sprint invested $1.73 billion ($1.01 billion in Q2 2012) for wireless and $93 million ($79 million in Q2 2012) in wireline infrastructure, the company said on Tuesday.

Sprint also said its 4G LTE is now available in 151 markets including 41 new markets announced today.

By 2017, Sprint’s energy is expected to increasingly come from renewable sources including wind, solar and hydrogen.

Bob Azzi, senior vice president-Network, Sprint, said: “We strive to be environmentally responsible and are proud of our track record. Our new 3G and 4G LTE network provides improved wireless service, and is expected to help Sprint meet its commitment to reduce total energy demand and the company’s carbon footprint by 20 percent by 2017.”

Sprint claims that it made strong progress on the Network Vision deployment in the quarter including the shutdown of the Nextel platform on June 30, which enables significant future improvement to Sprint’s cost structure. Over 4 million Nextel subscribers were recaptured to the Sprint platform since Network Vision commenced in early 2011.

To date more than 20,000 Network Vision sites are on air compared to more than 13,500 reported with first quarter results. The number of sites that are either ready for construction, already underway or completed has grown to more than 30,000.

As part of Network Vision, Sprint has launched 4G LTE in 151 cities, including Los Angeles, Dallas, Atlanta, Miami and Boston.

Sprint Capex-chart

Sprint expects to provide 200 million people with LTE by the end of 2013.

Meanwhile, Sprint’s Q2 revenue rose to $8.88 billion from $8.84 billion over the same period.

Sprint reported second-quarter net loss of $1.6 billion compared with a loss of $1.4 billion in the year-ago quarter.

Sprint, which will be acquired by SoftBank, lost 1.045 million contract customers in the quarter. The company said its Sprint-branded service added 194,000 customers in the quarter, but it would have posted a net decline of 170,000 without 364,000 users who moved from the Nextel network to the Sprint service.

In comparison Sprint’s biggest rival Verizon Wireless reported 941,000 subscriber additions and No. 2 U.S. mobile provider AT&T added over 550,000 net new subscribers in the second quarter.

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