NEW YORK, July 30 (Reuters) - Sprint Corp, the No. 3U.S. mobile service provider, posted a wider quarterly loss dueto hefty costs from shutting down its older Nextel network,although revenue grew as its customers spent more on wirelessservices.
Sprint, which sold 78 percent of its shares to Japan'sSoftBank Corp in the quarter, on Tuesday reported asecond-quarter net loss of $1.6 billion, or 53 cents per share,compared with a loss of $1.4 billion, or 46 cents per share, inthe year-ago quarter.
Revenue rose to $8.87 billion from $8.84 billion over thesame period. On average Wall Street analysts had expectedrevenue closer to $8.7 billion, according to Thomson ReutersI/B/E/S.
The company said its average revenue per subscriber on theSprint network increased to $64.20 in the quarter from $63.38 inthe year-ago quarter as its customers spent more on wirelessdata services such as mobile web surfing.
Sprint lost 1.045 million contract customers in the quarter,more than the average estimate for a loss of almost 972,000 byfour analysts contacted by Reuters. Their estimates ranged froma loss of 885,000 to 1.1 million customers.
The company said its Sprint-branded service added 194,000customers in the quarter, but it would have posted a net declinewithout 364,000 users transferred from the Nextel network, whichSprint bought in 2005 in a disastrous acquisition and finallyshut down in the second quarter.
Sprint has focused its marketing efforts largely onattracting Nextel customers in recent quarters rather thantargeting the broader market.
In comparison Sprint's biggest rival Verizon Wireless reported 941,000 subscriber additions and No. 2U.S. mobile provider AT&T Inc added over 550,000 net newsubscribers in the second quarter.
While Sprint has struggled for years to compete with itsbigger rivals, analysts now expect the company to become a muchstronger competitor with the help of SoftBank Chief Executiveand founder Masayoshi Son.
SoftBank paid $21.6 billion to take control of Sprint onJuly 10 after months of battling with rival bidder Dish NetworkCorp. SoftBank already helped Sprint - previously themajority owner of Clearwire Corp - to take full control of thatcompany in order to gain access to Clearwire's vast trove ofwireless spectrum to beef up Sprint's network.
Sprint said it expects 2013 adjusted operating income beforedepreciation and amortization (OIBDA) between 5.1 billion to$5.3 billion, including non-cash one-time costs related to itsSoftBank deal and its July buyout of Clearwire.
Excluding costs related to the deals, Sprint said its 2013target was for adjusted OIBDA between $5.5 billion and $5.7billion, which is ahead of its previous forecast that it wouldreach the high end of a $5.2 billion to $5.5 billion range.
Sprint, which is working on a network upgrade aimed atcatching up with its bigger rivals, said it would have a 2013capital spending budget of about $8 billion, in line withprevious forecasts around the time of the SoftBank deal.
Sprint was due to report results on the same day asSoftBank.
Vodafone (VOD)