Sprint Revenue Falls as it Adds 1.2M New Customers

Sprint Corp's quarterly revenue fell 6.7 percent as the U.S. mobile provider aggressively cut prices and offered promotions to attract new subscribers.

Shares of the company were up 0.6 percent in premarket trading after closing at $5.15 on Monday.

Wireless carriers have been going after each others' subscribers with discounts and attractive incentives as they try to increase revenue in a highly competitive, nearly saturated market.

Sprint said it added 1.2 million new customers, the highest in about three years, on a net basis in the quarter, compared with a net loss of 383,000 customers last year.

Sprint's net loss widened to $224 million, or 6 cents per share, in the three months ended March 31 from $151 million, or 4 cents per share, a year earlier.

This was in line with analysts' estimates of a loss of 6 cents per share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

The company, which is 80 percent owned by Japan's SoftBank Corp, said net operating revenue fell to $8.3 billion from $8.88 billion. This was slightly below analysts' revenue forecast of $8.43 billion.

Postpaid churn, or the rate of customer defections, was 1.84 percent, down from 2.3 percent last quarter.

It forecast 2015 adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) between $6.5 billion and $6.9 billion.It expects capital expenditures of approximately $5 billion, excluding the impact of leased devices sold through indirect channels. (Reporting by Malathi Nayak in New York and Supantha Mukherjee in Bengaluru; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty and Chizu Nomiyama)