Sprint reports 3rd-quarter loss, but it adds new customers

Sprint Corp. reported a loss during its third quarter, but the wireless carrier said it added nearly 1 million new customers during its third quarter.

Shares of Sprint rose more than 4 percent in morning trading Thursday.

The company has been very aggressing in trying to lure customers away from rivals. It is offering to cut whatever people were paying at Verizon or AT&T in half if they switch over to Sprint. It had 967,000 new customers during its third quarter, compared to 682,000 in the same period a year ago. Of its new subscribers, 30,000 were for lucrative contract-based wireless plans, the company said. Sprint originally reported those numbers in January. Sprint's other brands include Virgin Mobile, Boost Mobile and Assurance Wireless.

Sprint, which is the third-largest cellphone carrier behind Verizon and AT&T, said the quarter included an impairment charge of $2.1 billion. Of that, $1.9 billion was a writedown of the value of the Sprint brand name.

The company reported a loss of $2.38 billion in its fiscal third quarter. On a per-share basis, the Overland Park, Kansas-based company said it had a loss of 60 cents.

Losses, adjusted for asset impairment costs, were 18 cents per share. The results surpassed Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for a loss of 23 cents per share.

It posted revenue of $8.97 billion in the period, which also beat Street forecasts. Analysts expected $8.57 billion, according to Zacks.

Sprint's stock rose 18 cents, or 3.9 percent, to $4.76 in morning trading Thursday.

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Elements of this story were generated by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on S at http://www.zacks.com/ap/S

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Keywords: Sprint, Earnings Report