Cingular 3Q Profit More Than Triples To $847 Million
October 19th, 2006
Cingular Wireless reported today a net income of $847 million for Q3 2006, up 280% from last year. For the first nine months of the year, Cingular said it earned $1.74 billion, up from $129 million in the same period a year ago. Nine-month revenue rose 8.5% to $27.75 billion from $25.58 billion.
Cingular, now with 58.7 million subscribers, says its average revenue per user (ARPU) for data has jumped 46 percent from the same quarter last year. Data ARPU is now $6.32 and financial analysts note that it is mostly coming from the carrier’s 2G network. Meanwhile, Cingular expects its 3G UMTS/HSDPA network will cover most of the major markets by the end of the year.
Postpaid churn remained at the same record low point, 1.5 percent, with overall churn at 1.8 percent. The company reported 1.4 million net additions, compared to 867,000 last year. Retail customers were 87 percent of the quarter’s net adds.
Total revenues in the third quarter were $9.6 billion, a 9.2 percent climb from last year and up 3.6 percent from the second quarter. Total ARPU was $49.76, 11 cents higher than a year ago and 92 cents more than the second quarter.
Cingular reported 28 million active data customers in the third quarter and said it delivered 10 billion text messages and 138 million multimedia messages in the period.
Cingular Wireless is rumored to be dropping the Cingular name once the acquisition of BellSouth completes at year end returning back to the more popular AT&T Wireless.
