Cricket Wireless

Leap loses money despite customer gains

Jim Barthold — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 08:13:41 -0500

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
- see this press release

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Boost Mobile, Cricket simplify rate plans

Sue Marek — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 11:51:08 -0400

With the economy in the tank, consumers may be looking for a cheap and easy wireless deal, and prepaid providers Boost Mobile and Cricket Wireless are looking to capitalize on that trend. Last week Leap Wireless announced that its Cricket service would offer new daily rate plans called PayGo that provide customers with unlimited service for $1, $2 or $3 per day. The $1 plan includes unlimited local calling and voicemail, caller ID and three-way calling. The $2 plan offers the same as the $1 plan plus unlimited text and picture messaging. And the $3 plan adds unlimited U.S. long distance, international texting, mobile Web and directory assistance.

Now comes word from Boost Mobile that it is launching a new flat-rate of 10 cents per minute for all calls, no matter what time of day. The Boost Mobile plan, called Pay As You Go, lets customers pay by the minute without a long-term commitment. Plus they already can get unlimited nationwide push-to-talk service from Boost for a flat-fee of $1 per day.

J.D. Power and Associates' says that subscribers prefer flat-rate plans with unlimited minutes. In the company's annual prepaid wireless customers satisfaction study, the overall satisfaction among U.S. prepaid users is higher among those who subscribe to flat-rate plans with unlimited minutes vs. those who have per-minute pricing plans because of the cost advantages associated with the flat-rate plans.

For more:
- see this release

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Cricket comes to St. Louis

Sue Marek — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 12:06:14 -0400

Starting tomorrow, Leap Wireless will begin offering Cricket unlimited wireless service in St. Louis. The coverage area extends from Warrenton, Mo., to Keyesport, Ill., and includes 2.4 million new covered POPs bringing Cricket's national covered POPs to about 6.7 million.

The carrier will launch in St. Louis with nine retail stores and more than 80 authorized dealers. Plans will range in cost from $30 per month to $60 per month.

For more:
- see this release

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