“The bottom line is that I now see a path toward improvement”. SoftBank is forecasting “light at the end of the tunnel” in regards to Sprint.
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Mr. Son, the billionaire founder of the Japanese telecommunications and Internet giant, said Sprint is seeing net additions in postpaid customers and that plans were in place to reduce Sprint’s debt.
Sprint has struggled to compete against larger rivals AT&T Inc and Verizon Communications Inc even while it burns through cash trying to acquire and retain customers. Since the appointment of Marcelo Claure as chief executive last summer, Sprint’s churn has lowered to 1.56% from 2.3%, and it has returned to quarterly net subscriber growth. While the company initially planned to merge Sprint with T-Mobile, that plan was scuttled by regulatory opposition.
Reuters had a slightly different wording to Son’s comments, reporting that he said: “There was a time when I lost confidence in managing Sprint”.
Thursday’s news conference was nearly entirely dedicated to explaining the efforts in turning around Sprint, with Mr. Son repeatedly expressing his confidence in the future of the mobile carrier. And actually reported higher than expected, thanks to Sprint doing better than they had expected. Its shares are still down 52 percent over the past year.
In the three months to 30 June, the Japan-based telco generated sales of ¥2.1 trillion (€15.7 billion), up 10% on last year, as growth in its domestic market combined with the yen’s depreciation against the dollar offset a decline in sales at its U.S. arm Sprint.
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Sprint disclosed this week that it is working SoftBank and other unnamed partners to set up a leasing company that will finance its devices leased by customers on “attractive terms”. SoftBank also announced a share buyback of almost $1 billion. Chairman (and SoftBank CEO) Masayoshi Son says that American networks as a whole are “very bad” – he thinks Sprint can improve this reputation without spending a ton of money.
