Sprint has announced that it has added almost 1 million new customers at the end of the fiscal quarter that ended in December.
The country's third biggest wireless carrier keeps its place in the spot behind Verizon and AT&T as it signed up a total of 967,000 new subscribers, 410,000 of whom signed up for prepaid accounts while 527,000 became new wholesale customers. The remaining 30,000 customers subscribed to one of Sprint's postpaid plans.
Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure, who took over in August after former chief Dan Hesse was ousted, says the 1 million net additions is the first sign that the various steps Sprint has taken to revitalize its business is working.
"Sprint's first priority is a return to customer growth and our results during the last quarter show we are on the right track," Claure says in a statement. "While we still have work to do, it is clear that our aggressive actions to provide customers with the best value in wireless are gaining momentum."
Sprint says the 30,000 new postpaid customers is a significant improvement for the embattled wireless carrier because it had been losing customers to its rivals during the last several quarters. This quarter, the figure was largely due to the 20 percent increase in new subscriptions compared to the same period during the previous year. Sprint added a net 590,000 new customers in the preceding quarter that ended in September.
Part of Sprint's efforts to attract more customers is an attractive "Cut Your Bill in Half" promo, which cut the monthly rate plan for customers who were defecting from Verizon and AT&T to Sprint. Claure says the promo has been extremely successful and Sprint planned to continue to undercut Verizon and AT&T's offers to all customers who decide to switch to Sprint throughout the entire year.
Sprint also introduced an iPhone for Life leasing program that allowed customers to own a new iPhone model every single year by leasing their iPhones for around $20 a month. Claure says the model gave Sprint a new perspective on the smartphone market because it allows customers to pay less for the cost of owning the newest iPhone while also letting Sprint sell second-hand devices afterwards.
T-Mobile also announced new subscription figures this week, saying it added a net total of 2.1 million new subscribers in the latest quarter. Anyone following the price wars between the four biggest carriers knows T-Mobile, led by its firebrand CEO John Legere, tried really hard to overtake Sprint in 2014. Alas, T-Mobile ended the year with a total of 55 million customers all in all, just a million short of Sprint's 56 million.
