BELLEVUE, Wash.-Citing the pending completion of a review of its accounting for operating leased towers, Western Wireless Corp. said it is delaying the full release of fourth-quarter and year-end 2004 financial results originally scheduled for March 10. Western Wireless, which announced earlier this year that it is being acquired by Alltel Corp. for about $6 billion, noted the review is in response to recent clarification from the Securities and Exchange Commission, and that it would announce a rescheduled date for reporting financial results by March 16.
Western Wireless did report that it added 36,600 net domestic subscribers during the fourth quarter of last year, which was a 48-percent improvement compared with the 24,800 subscribers the carrier added during the fourth quarter of 2003, ending 2004 with nearly 1.4 million customers. The carrier noted that customer churn during the quarter dropped from 2.1 percent in 2003 to 2 percent last year.
The carrier’s international operations posted 204,900 net customer additions during the fourth quarter ending the year with nearly 1.8 million total subscribers.
