Sprint Nextel Corp S
Q4 2011 Earnings Call Transcript

Operator: Michael Rollins, Citigroup.

Michael Rollins - Citigroup: Two questions. First, just given the fast pace of iPhone sales in the fourth quarter now coming into the first, how should we think about that trending in terms of volumes or mix, and the percent that comes from new versus existing subscribers? Then Dan, turning over to the strategic side, Slide 14 that you went through, went through a lot of the operational progress for Sprint. But, can you talk more about where Sprint is positioned strategically, with T-Mobile still in the market, Cable choosing to work with Verizon, it seems like you have some real competition to go after the remaining partners, who have spectrum, capital, or both. So, can you just put in perspective for us, what Sprint is doing to put the Company in the best position to either partner or buy spectrum as we move forward over the next 12 to 24 months?

Dan Hesse - CEO: Let me take the second part first, Michael. Now there is no question with our equity, currently where it is, and the other investments we're making over the next couple of years that we won't have perhaps as many options as we normally would have. We certainly will entertain any kinds of transactions, partnering opportunities, or what have you that we believe are in the interest of our shareholders, and I still believe there will be a number of them that could present themselves over the next couple of years. The importance of the decision of AT&T to abandon its acquisition of T-Mobile is it clearly provides many more opportunities for us and for companies outside of the top two to become much stronger competitors over time. So, we will continue to evaluate and look at all the opportunities that present themselves over the next couple years. So, the first question was – I'll let Brad handle.

Brad Hampton - IR: Hey, Mike, we're not going to give specific guidance on iPhone units or mix, but we continue to be pleased with the results we've seen, consistent with what we told you about Q4.

Operator: Jonathan Chaplin, Credit Suisse.

Jonathan Chaplin - Credit Suisse: I am wondering if you could give us a little bit more color, Joe, on the churn trends that you expect through the course of the year. So, as the temporary impact that you saw in churn in the fourth quarter eases, how should we expect churn to come down and how does that translate into postpaid subscriber trends during the course of the year?

Joseph J. Euteneuer - CFO: So, I think, look, on churn we said that once we get through the first quarter, which we think is the clearing period of the stuff that happened in 2011, we plan on having continued progress in the churn number. We haven't given any specific guidance, but when you think about the overall revenue growth we need to achieve to hit our OIBDA results, it's sort of blended in there.

Dan Hesse - CEO: I'll hit the second part, Jonathan, this is Dan. We haven't provided specific guidance with respect to postpaid net adds, I think that was the second part of your question for the year. This will be the year that we really begin – it already has begun, but much more aggressive active migration of customers off of the iDEN platform. So, what you can expect is, continued strong performance and growth on the Sprint platform. That momentum will continue, but you will see larger than historical declines on the iDEN platform as we start working toward – we're going to be decommissioning iDEN cell sites during the year, which will save money, and we'll be overtly proactively migrating customers off the iDEN platform, so you will see, if you will, iDEN platform churn go up. So, really like what we've been describing today have these, fuel these three buckets at Sprint, you've got a very healthy strong growing Sprint platform and you have, if you will, declines on the – year-over-year on the wireline and on the iDEN platform or Nextel platform side, and those declines on the Nextel platform side will accelerate in '13 as we aggressively begin the migration efforts.