Though you'd have to argue that Sprint is a leaner, smarter company than it was a couple years ago, it's not out of the woods yet. The company's fourth quarter earnings show that it's still losing money to the tune of $980 million -- a $502 million decline from
the quarter prior -- and net wireless subscribers declined by some 148,000, though there's a lot of hand-waving here (iDEN lost 504,000 subs, for example, while the CDMA network actually gained 3,000, and there were a couple big acquisitions thrown into the mix). Churn decreased slightly against both the third quarter and the fourth quarter of '08 -- a good sign, to be sure -- and ARPUs were generally up, though prepaid ARPU specifically took a hit as a result of the
Virgin Mobile buy; who knew that Virgin customers had lower ARPUs than Boost's? To end on a high note, Sprint says it's working with the highest free cash flow in company history and it saw its first net gain in CDMA subs (however small that gain might be) in six quarters, so there's reason to keep the faith -- and maybe this
Supersonic can work some more magic, right?
posted February 10th 2010 12:55PM
Get some better handsets and maybe you won't lose as many customers!
Verizon has the Droid
AT&T has the iPhone
T-Mobile has the Nexus One and HTC HD2
.. Sprint has the Hero.. and Moment?
@Accidental
I do admit the Pre is a good phone and some of the Blackberry phones are nice.. but for an industry flagship device, they're lacking. Must be the lack of killer CDMA phones?
Sprint also has a great network at very reasonable prices, so I'm baffled why they'd lose so many customers to more expensive networks.
@Accidental sprint has solid smartphone line up but overall is not great compared to att and vzw. Their advertising sucks and they don't air to many commercials like att and vzw do. Iden as of now sucks theyre signal sucks inside buildings regular people that don't know the difference in technologies purchase nextel and leave angry at sprint thinking that sprint completely sucks when they don't even know that sprint cdma phones are not like the ones from nextel trust me i know alot of people like that.
@Accidental So what's the Palm Pre? Chopped liver? Also some good blackberries are on their network.
@brokensticks nevermind... forgot to reload to see other comments
@Accidental
Sprint has $10 Sero and so on plans. I am willing to bet the half of Sprint's customers pay less than half of what those at Verizon or AT&T pay.
Thought about switching to sprint but their plans no longer offer value, unless you are a high user (unlimited).
@Accidental
The Palm Pre is the finest phone I've had the please of owning or using. The Pre is almost a mirror image of Sprint: it is very good at what it does but the public doesn't seem to recognize it at the moment.
You can't keep a good thing down forever.
@Accidental Soon they will have the SUPERSONIC, and with that phone having WIMAX/4G it will bring people back to Sprint from the other carriers... or will it? the new iphone rumor has every existing iphone clone waiting to see if it will be offered on another network. aka Verizon, which would not be a bad idea, beings that AT&T has pretty much built there 4G network nationwide, and no real improvements, just more complaints about dropped calls, and lack of real coverage. Where as Verizon is moving ahead in the market and going straight for the ultimate 4G (besides WIMAX) which is LTE, and if the rumors are correct, AT&T should be going that way next year, but maybe to late for big blue. I applaud big red (Verizon) for sitting back over the last few years, and watching as the other carriers in the U.S. re-vamped there networks, and spent money to build, and learned how-what not to do, and change the direction of there ship completely.
I don't understand why they're hurting so much. They have some very nice Android phones, Blackberrys, and I would LOVE a Pre. I'm happy with their service quality and their pricing is great.
What's the problem?
Disclosure: I have a Sprint unlimited data plan with 0 complaints, but T-Mobile provides my voice plan I due to better rates and the ability to move my SIM from phone to phone depending on my mood that day.
I personally think CDMA based carriers will start to lose clients as most phones are produced in HSPA and GSM flavors. That was the problem with the two main carriers in Canada, until they upgraded to HSPA that is. Now they can offer a ton of cool phones and a faster network to boot.
Verizon and Sprint better do something about it and quick!
@Shlooky
Largest mistake Sprint made was not switching their Iden network to 3G WCDMA HSDPA. Their frequency would have been on par with AT&T's 850 and they would have been able to offer the latest and greatest international handsets. Then they made the second mistake of investing into WIMAX.
I will say this once again the reason Sprint is loosing money is the lack of hotter devices their smart phones have a good lineup but other than that the other devices completely suck. Now their devices are super expensive compared with the other carriers. I know that sprint plans are cheaper but the average person goes with the cheapest phone.
For example the touch pro 2 is priced at 350 with 100 rebate so you will have to pay 450 plus tax out the door what regular person would pay that much this is the same phone thats on vzw for 200 bucks. Theyre handsets are always attached to a mir people don't like going trough that.
Also sprint trow some good deals on handsets and advertise it on tv like att and vzw do. Seriously there was hardly no deals for Christmas like att and vzw. right now for valentines they don't have any deals or special phones shit what happened to the pink pixie that was suppose to come out. Sprint has changed everything since dan took over but the high price on phones, lack of deals, not great phone selection overall, better advertising, or promotions is still the same could it be that that is the answer seriously it don't take a freaking genius to see that cheap prices in phones is a good way to bring new customers in.
For the info Im a happy sprint customer 10 years using a palm pre currently
@periks19
I honestly think a minor reason for the high price of the TP2 is that it's a hedge for the people still on Sero who want a good smartphone. They price it higher and make them put more money into the phone so they don't loose so much on the service. It's better than not allowing it to be activated on SERO like the large majority of their current smartphones. I eventually think that the FCC will do away with these plan requirements on phones.
@zachavm
I doubt that the FCC will be able to do away with the plan requirements. As with any other goods or services sold companies have to have a price scale to recoup what they loose in providing a service and/or lost in a product before it's sold to a customer.
And as far as data is concerned, most carriers require unlimited to ensure good performance of the device. Most handsets now are data centric and require data for them to work properly and for the best user experience.
I wonder how much of this is because of sero.
@zachavm
Good point. I am on a 500 minutes+unlimited text, pic mail and data plan for $30.00/month, plus a $5.00/month discount. So I won't be leaving anytime soon...until they require me to upgrade my plan.
@zachavm
That's exactly why they are bleeding. They offer exclusive plans for next to nothing. Sero would be great plan if they decided to open these rates up to all.
I was looking at their family plan and the lowest is a 69.95 for 700 minutes. Um, that is on par with what I would pay at Verizon and more expensive than AT&T's 500 minute minimum plan. Instead they are simply trying to sucker people in with unlimited plans.
We are in a recession, they only way they will get people to jump ship is by offering good value sero style plans for all. Not everyone needs totally unlimited plans.
@JKL
"They offer exclusive plans for next to nothing. Sero would be great plan if they decided to open these rates up to all."
--
Don't these two points pretty much contradict each other? Sprint is hemorrhaging money at least in part because it has so many customers on low cost rate plans...but you want them to allow even *more* people to get on those plans?
@Omagus
In a way they do and don't. The problem with Sero plans is that only a select few get to use them, so they are useless. Furthermore, when looking at various sprint forums, it's interesting to read about the sheer number of multiple discounts people receive. Rebates request both Verizon and AT&T would laugh at. Sprint customers have clearly learned to push for more and more rebates, with the threat of 'jumping ship', is driving their revenue down. Newsflash to such customers: other carriers don't want bottom of the barrel, bargain-basement, give-me-give-me type of customers.
Like other carriers, Sprint is simply looking at increasing ARPU, which I think is a flawed strategy. It's basically the equivalent of pushing the upholstery protection when purchasing a new car. However, the other carriers are at least selling Cadillac's instead of Cobalt's. Instead, Sprint should be going down the walmart route, which means earning less yet making money from more subscribers.
Currently, sprint barely differentiates in price, service or performance. They simply follow the pack. Whereas, I think in an economy like this, they should be aiming for the value customer. Offer services like those of straight talk or page plus cellular. Trying to pushing everyone on unlimited is just not going to work, as isn't giving existing customers rebate after rebate. Sprint needs to learn to not charge like AT&T and Verizon, when you are clearly not an AT&T or Verizon.
@Omagus
On the other hand, i'm sure they would take 148k subs on SERO than them out the door. Yes the ARPU would suck compared to competitors but they have to figure a way to KEEP subs. A good price point isn't a bad place to start, then some groovy flagship phones like the other carriers have.
honestly they could stand to lose all the sero plans, that was a silly hole in the ground that needed to be filled. That said Sprint is bad about not keeping up with the other carriers on cutting edge phones, although if the supersonic is as cool as hoped you can bet your ass you'll hear me bragging on my super sonic on my everything plan.
The reason they're losing customers is because their customer service is shit. I mean honestly, it's almost despicable. I was with Sprint for 6 years and switching to tmobile is the best thing I ever did. It's night and day between the two in terms of customer care.
@Moonchild
+1
I have the exact same story.
@Omagus What stories are these. You're just saying customer service is bad, but not telling us what happened. If you know how to use a phone, why would you need customer service
@who
Wow, you're serious aren't you? Not understanding how to use a phone is about 35th on the list of why you would call customer care. How about questionable billing? Not having the correct number of minutes available each month? How about being turned off on the day your bill is due because Sprint prorates your next months bill on that very day, making it appear you are two months behind? How about losing service for 3 days only to be told you're lying about it?
And in all these circumstances, I was led in an exercise in circular logic, with morons and their upper morons, all of whom either live in India and I can't understand them, or if I can understand them, insist on reading from a script regardless of what the problem is. How about being hung up on when asking questions about a billing inaccuracy because it was close to quitting time? Need I go on?
Sprint has the worst customer service on the planet (at least as of 14 months ago), and you deduce this to mean we don't know how to use a phone? Idiotic.
sprint is losing customers because of their bad customer service and because they have the lowest quality of customers in the business. too many bad credit risks and low end customers. not my opinion, read it in the WSJ. also when you go into a sprint store the employees are very far from confidence inspiring.
alll good points. But, sprint's customer service is much better than it used to be. I've been with them for 6 years.
they definitely need more advertising comparing long term costs of unlimited data plans (and maybe how much data a typical user uses). If they do that and get a killer phone (supersonic) they will do better. Sprint now is bettr than it used to be but it takes time for people'e perceptions to change.
I own a pre and I love it, but it's not the "killer" phone sprint needed. A higher end phone from palm would qualify in my eyes (bigger screen, more industrial design).
come on sprint!!! You can do this!!! Typing my comment on my palm pree connected throw wifi to my overdrive 4g 3g wireless modem... It's awsome!!!
If I was running Sprint this is what I would do. Scrap all of the medium to low end plans. Then follow a pricing structure similar to straight-talk or pageplus cellular prepaid. For example: $35 for 1,000 minutes, 1,000 text and 30mb. Like t-mobile, offer those with poor credit the chance to sign up without contract, but force them to prepay their usage and buy their handset outright. Hence minimal risk of loss by unpaid bills.
I would also follow the international tiered data model for pricing. Offer 1, 3, 5, 10 and 15 gig plans. I know a lot of people that would pay $10 for a 1 gig, that currently use zero data plan.
Last but not least, shut down iden and switch it to LTE. Or setup a national HSDPA+ WCMA network, like rogers Canada did, and use equipment that can easily be converted to LTE.
Doing nothing, coming out with more unlimited plans or putting all your eggs into wimax will be the end of sprint. Time to follow the lead of various successful international carriers, rather than the status-quo. This may mean a joint venture with some experienced international carrier like Three.
I left Sprint for Verizon last year because of their atrocious customer service. I'd been a loyal customer for years, but they always treated me poorly and screwed things up whenever I asked them to fix a problem.
Don't miss them a bit. Hope they fire all the idiots dragging the company down with bad business decisions and horrible customer service and turn things around.
I really do not think that lack of quality phones is a factor in people leaving. The Palm Pre is easily one of the best smartphones available today and look at Verizon: They were #1 long before they had any decent smartphones.
The two most important things are customer service and a good network. Sprint has a decent network but their customer service is causing a mass exodus.
@ThisIsMyName Why would you ever need to call customer service? I'm sure you can figure out everything yourself.
C'mon, Sprint! I'm rooting for you!
(Not that I would actually use your service myself...)
Been with Sprint for 12 years now. I keep hearing about "Customer Service" issues, but the only time I've had to deal with them in all this time is when adding/removing a phone. Not sure how people are having do deal with them so much CS is a problem (none of my bills have ever been inaccurate, either.)
But other than that, with the exception of the 1998-1999 years when actual wireless service was quite spotty in some areas, it's been reliable for calls and data (and the EvDO is very fast and reliable). It would take a total meltdown of their infrastructure to get me to ever leave, and now that they have an Android handset with a keyboard (Samsung Moment) I'm really all set now.
Some people pay too much for cell phone service while they could get the same for less.
I'm on an HTC Hero with Sprint and I'm not missing out on anything that ppl are getting on their Verizon's Droid or ATT's Iphone.
I guess I don't get it.... neither do I want to.
I love this, the more people leave, the better Sprint's service can get. As a relatively new Sprint customer, I'm happy knowing that my network will never be clogged. And that I'm paying less than everyone else. Hooray!
I'm a long time Sprint customer.
Positives: Excellent voice coverage in my rural area. Low network congestion - as previous poster noted. Free mobile-to-mobile.
Problems: I agree the Sprint sales experience is dismal. Sadly, my local Sprint Store is ghost city while VZW has waiting lines and greeters to manage the crowds. They're managing to make Android phones a "must-have" for the common man; and they've got plenty of non-tech types whipping out their credit cards.
I currently have no urge to switch because if everybody else here is on VZW, I'll stay on Sprint where its less crowded. (Like in L.A - if everybody's on the 405 - then that's the one place you DON'T want to be.).
Misc.: I was a happy Treo user who moved up(?) to a Centro. There's lots of features I'd like to use on my Centro for which there's no documentation, so I gave up trying. Since they're undocumented, trying to get answers from Sprint or Palm is too painful an experience to recount.
As an otherwise avid Palm fanboy I'm interested in in moving to WebOS, but neither of the two current models interest me. I don't want a slider or a me-too Blkbry; I want a PalmPilot...that's a phone...with WebOS. For applications, I want the usual Palm desktop stuff, a good music/audiobook player(with OGG/FLAC), video player (with specs! Nero or other conversion software are iPod savvy, but Palm? Noooo.), and ebook reader (incl adobe, html, and txt.).
If they came out with Hero/Nexus/etc form factor I'd be interested. H*ll, a CDMA iPhn with WebOS, updated screen, and faster processor would be wonderfull if such a beast could be imagined.
So Sprint, Palm, if you're listening, here you have some relevant customer feedback.
I'm a Sprint dude. I thought about leaving em too. But then I heard about the Supersonic. The sooner that wicked machine comes out, the better the chance they have at keeping me as a customer. I want a GOOD smartphone. My Hero is okay, but suffers from meh hardware.