Leap loses money despite customer gains

The cost of building out broadband wireless infrastructure is proving to be a heavy burden for Leap Wireless which reported a loss of $48.8 million or 72 cents per share in the third quarter. On a positive note, some analysts saw the carrier losing as much as 57 cents per share. Here's a breakdown of the other key metrics for the quarter:

Revenues: Leap reported 21 percent improvement in revenues which rose to $496.7 million from $409.7 million a year ago. This, too, fell short of analyst expectations of $509.4 million.

Customers: Leap added 156,000 customers in the quarter, mostly for voice services, bringing its total base to 3.5 customers or 800,000 more than a year ago including 40,000 new broadband subscribers. But those broadband customers didn't come cheap. Leap said it lost $49.4 million in operating income to launch new markets and expand mobile broadband service, including its Cricket Wireless Internet service.

Churn: Third quarter churn was 4.2 percent, an improvement from 5.2 percent in the same period last year.

ARPU: Average revenue per user declined 3.5 percent from the prior year to $42.95.

For more:
- see this article [1]
- see this press release [2]

Related stories:
Leap offers mobile video [3] for $5 per month
Leap Wireless details aggressive plans for broadband [4]