Sprint Earnings Beat Street on Subscriber Growth, Stock Soars

Sprint shares soared in pre-market trading, as the wireless carrier beat Wall Street's second-quarter earnings estimates on strong sales of its HTC EVO 4G and BlackBerry Curve smart phones -- yielding its first net increase in subscribers in three years, the company announced Wednesday.

Sprint (S) shares climbed 9.3% to $5.28 in premarket trading. The wireless carrier reported a net gain of 111,000 subscribers, when accounting for customers who signed up for service and those who left. Despite the subscriber increase, second quarter sales dropped 1.4% to $8.03 billion in the quarter, compared with last year.

"Our intense focus for the past ten quarters on improving the customer experience, strengthening our brands, and generating cash are paying off," Dan Hesse, Sprint Nextel CEO, said in a statement. "We feel we can confidently improve our subscriber forecasts for the second half of 2010 and deliver positive total net wireless subscriber additions for the remainder of the year."

Sprint posted a net loss of $760 million, or 25 cents a share, compared with a loss of $384 million a year ago. But when accounting for special charges, the company posted a net loss of 15 cents in the second quarter. Analysts were expecting a loss of 20 cents a share, according to Thomson Reuters.