ATLANTA-Sprint PCS affiliate AirGate PCS Inc. posted preliminary operating results for its first fiscal quarter ending Dec. 31, 2003, including year-over-year drops in both customer additions and churn as well as mixed financial performance.
The carrier said it added 438 net customers during its first fiscal quarter ended Dec. 31, 2003, which was well below the 13,670 customers the carrier added during the previous year, but ahead of the 4,697 subscribers the carrier lost during the previous quarter. The carrier also reported customer churn dropped from 3.78 percent during the first fiscal quarter of 2003 to 3.1 percent this year, and that the recent implementation of local number portability has had a modest impact on churn.
AirGate also said it expects to report between $81.7 million and $82.5 million in total revenues during the first quarter compared with $81.9 million it reported for the first quarter of 2003. Despite the flat revenue, net income is expected to improve from a loss of $47.7 million last year to a return of approximately $170 million this year partly due to a $184.1 million non-monetary gain from disposition of discontinued operations resulting from the elimination of the carrier’s investment in iPCS Inc.
