Palm’s Pre Can’t Offset Sprint’s Subscriber Losses

Larry Dignan on Sprint’s dismal quarterly results:

Sprint called the launch of the Palm Pre a success, but it wasn’t enough to offset a net subscriber loss of 257,000 in the second quarter. The subscriber loss, which came amid a churn rate of 2.05 percent, illustrates Sprint’s challenge. The company is launching new handsets—Palm Pre, Samsung Instinct s30, HTC Snap and the BlackBerry Tour—but is still having trouble retaining customers.

Meanwhile, Sprint reported a wider-than-expected second quarter loss, a fact that may be worrisome given the carrier’s big bet on the prepaid market, which includes a bunch of subprime customers.

Related: Verizon will have the Pre starting in “early 2010”.

★ Wednesday, 29 July 2009