For Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure, the future regarding customer engagement and retention looks bright. That’s because of, in large part, a record network performance.
“Our network is performing at best-ever levels across the board, and we are delivering on our goal of providing a network that delivers a consistent reliability, capacity, and the speed that our customers demand,” Claure explained during Sprint’s Jan. 26 fiscal third-quarter conference call, according to Seeking Alpha. “Our new LTE Plus Network is now in more than 150 markets across the country and takes advantage of our rich spectrum position, coupled with technology enhancements like carrier aggregation and antenna beamforming to create wider channels, producing more capacity, and faster speeds.”
What’s more, Claure said that, according to recent mobile performance data from Nielsen (the world’s foremost authority on independent measurement), Sprint’s LTE Plus Network is delivering the fastest LTE download speeds compared to Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile.
“This matters in a big way because Nielsen looks at how real customers are actually experiencing the network,” Claure said. “This quarter marks a big step forward in our turnaround effort at Sprint, and we’re progressing in our plan to return Sprint to profitability, subscriber growth, and network parity or superiority. I’m very excited about the momentum that Sprint is building across all aspects of our transformation plan.”
First, postpaid phone net additions were the highest in three years and the company has had the highest postpaid net ports on record. At the same time, Sprint had its best ever postpaid churn for fiscal third quarter in the company’s 20-year history in wireless and the biggest year-over-year improvement in churn in more than 12 years.
“We continue to build momentum in our cost reduction effort with nearly $800 million improvement year-to-date in cost of service, and selling, general and administrative expenses,” Claure said. “In addition, our network is performing better than ever for both voice and data, according to reputable third parties who measure network performance, including RootMetrics and Nielsen. Remarkably, our last three quarters are the lowest churn quarters in the company’s history, which speaks to the continued improvement in our network and improved quality of customers we’re now attracting.”
Above all, in the highest profit contribution category for business, Sprint’s postpaid phone net additions of 366,000 were the highest in three years and marked the second consecutive quarter of net additions.