Alamosa Holdings Inc. reported strong preliminary third-quarter results and revised a number of its full-year financial and operational metrics.
The Sprint PCS affiliate said it added 53,000 net subscribers during the third quarter, which was more than a 200-percent improvement compared with the 16,000 net customer additions the carrier reported during the third quarter of 2003 and more than 30-percent higher than the 40,000 customer additions posted during the second quarter of this year. Alamosa ended the quarter with 866,000 total customers.
Customer churn also improved year-over-year from 2.9 percent during the third quarter of 2003 to 2.4 percent this year, but churn did increase from the 2.1 percent Alamosa posted during the second quarter of this year. The carrier’s management acknowledged that the implementation of wireless local number portability May 24 contributed to some increased customer churn, but it had no material impact on net subscriber additions during the quarter.
Along with the strong preliminary third-quarter results, Alamosa updated its full-year guidance for adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization from $170 million to $180 million; decreased its customer churn estimate from less than 2.6 percent to 2.4 percent; decreased fixed asset additions from $90 million to between $75 million and $80 million; and increased its expected covered pop penetration from between 7 percent and 7.2 percent to between 7.1 percent and 7.4 percent.
Alamosa is scheduled to release full third-quarter results Nov. 4.
