Sprint Nextel Stock Drops The Most Since 2008

Sprint, one of the biggest mobile phone carriers were clobbered in the stock market with sub-par earnings.

July 28, 2011- Sprint, based in Overland Park, Kansas, is the country’s third largest mobile phone carrier and after reporting their quarterly earnings that did not meet analysts estimates their stock dropped more than at anytime since 2008.

Their loss for the second quarter was $847 million or $0.28 per share and last year for the same quarter their lost was $760 million or $0.25 per share. Operating income was down by 12% to $1.3 billion as analysts had estimated income of close to $1.5 billion.

The company lost another 101,000 clients that were on monthly contracts during the quarter that was down from the 114,000 they lost in the previous quarter. The last quarter of 2010 was the first quarter in over four years that they gained customers on a monthly basis. The business spent over $120 million to stay competitive on retention costs and customer acquisition.

Sprint’s stock was down 17%, falling $0.86 to $4.30. Earlier the shares fell over 20% the largest intraday fall since December of 2008. The majority of analysts had estimated only a 12 cents per share loss. In the last quarter estimates were that Sprint would only lose 25,000 subscribers and that number was much higher (101,000).

Sprint announced a 15 year deal with LightSquared, owned by billionaire Philip Falcone, to share the costs and equipment for network expansion.