Churn stymies iPCS’ growth

Sprint Nextel Corp. affiliate iPCS Inc.’s customer additions for the third quarter decreased compared to previous quarters, while the company’s churn rate increased.
The carrier said it added 10,100 net customers during the third quarter of 2007-a sizeable decrease, given that the company had gained around 17,000 customers in each of the two prior third quarters. Gross additions totaled 68,400 subscribers for the quarter, up from the 61,200 gross adds in the same period a year ago.
However, the gains in gross adds were offset by an increase in customer churn at iPCS. The affiliate posted churn of 2.8% during the quarter, up from 2.5% in the third quarter of 2006. The company’s metrics also lost steam consecutively; it reported a second-quarter churn rate of 2.2% and had gained about 21,000 subscribers in that quarter.
Timothy Yager, president and CEO of iPCS, said that “we were . disappointed with the increase in churn, which was driven by higher involuntary deactivations. We are actively managing our growth to ensure that the higher churn is a near-term issue and not a long-term trend.”
The company only reported its customer metrics, and is scheduled to release its full financial and subscriber results on Nov. 7.
iPCS ended the quarter with about 622,000 total customers on its network. The company operates in 80 markets in Illinois, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Iowa, Ohio and Tennessee.