Sprint Sold 1.4 Million iPhones Last Quarter but Lost Two Million Subscribers Amid Nextel Shutdown

Sprint said late Monday that it lost nearly two million customers last quarter, largely due to the shutdown of its Nextel network.

It has been a busy time for Sprint, which has also acquired spectrum from U.S. Cellular, closed a deal to sell a majority stake of itself to SoftBank, and a separate deal to acquire the remainder of network provider Clearwire.

Sprint is also in the midst of playing catch-up to AT&T and Verizon in rolling out 4G LTE service. Sprint said it has now launched 4G LTE in 151 cities, including 41 markets announced on Monday. Sprint added that it expects its network to cover 200 million people by the end of this year.

As for its quarterly results, Sprint said it posted an $874 million operating loss amid charges related to the Nextel shutdown. Its net loss was $1.6 billion, or 43 cents per share. That compares to a year-ago operating loss of $629 million and a net loss of $1.4 billion, or 46 cents per share. Revenue of $8.8 billion was roughly flat from a year earlier.

On the plus side, the company said the number of contract customers on the Sprint network as well as revenue per customer and total Sprint-brand revenue all reached best-ever levels for the quarter.

The company said that, of its contract Sprint platform phones, 86 percent of devices were smartphones, including 1.4 million iPhones.