Rural Cellular Corp. Rural Cellular’s revenues increased 103 percent to $34 million from $16.8 million during last year’s third quarter. Net loss for the quarter totaled $4.5 million, or 50 cents per share, compared with net income of $621,000, or 7 cents per share, during the same period last year. The net loss included a one-time charge of $1 million. The company’s subscriber base grew to 205,100 from 101,900 at the end of the third quarter last year, including 78,000 customers from its purchase of Atlantic Cellular.
SBC Communications Inc. SBC’s earnings increased 20 percent to $988 million from $826 million, before one-time gains resulting from the sale of non-core businesses. Revenues increased 7.1 percent to $6.8 billion from $6.3 billion last year. SBC added 151,000 net wireless subscribers during the quarter, of which 51,000 were cellular customers. Wireless subscriber revenues grew 10.7 percent to $911 million from last year’s third quarter.
United States Cellular Corp. U.S. Cellular reported net income of $35.4 million, or 41 cents per share, compared with net income of $36.2 million, or 42 cents per share, for last year’s third quarter. Revenues totaled $313.9 million, up 35.3 percent . The company has more than 2 million customer units in service.
Ameritech Corp. Ameritech’s revenues for the third quarter totaled $4.3 billion, up 7 percent from revenues of $4 billion during the third quarter of 1997. Net income totaled $645 million, or 58 cents per share, compared with net income of $613 million, or 56 cents per share, for the same period last year. The company said its cellular customer base grew 19 percent to 3.5 million.
Bell Atlantic Mobile. Bell Atlantic Mobile added 207,000 net customers during the last year for a total of 5.9 million wireless customers. Digital subscribers grew to more than 565,000 customers, which generate about 30 percent of the company’s busy-hour network traffic. Revenues increased $100 million, or 12.5 percent, to $903 million for the quarter.
BellSouth Corp. BellSouth’s wireless revenues accounted for $1.2 billion of the company’s $5.87 billion in revenues for the quarter. Average monthly revenue per customer stands at $45, compared with $51 during last year’s third quarter. The company reported a cellular subscriber base of 5.4 million and a PCS subscriber base of 249,000.
Southern New England Telecommunications Corp. SNET posted a net income of $54.5 million, or 79 cents per share, compared with net income of $49.1 million, or 74 cents per share, during the third quarter of 1997. Wireless revenues were $66.9 million, up 14.8 percent from last year’s third quarter. SNET’s subscriber base grew by 12.9 percent for a total of 483,000 customers.
Alltel Corp. Alltel reported a net loss of $28 million, or 10 cents per share, for the quarter, reflecting charges associated with its acquisition of 360
