Leap adds 385,000 customers in fourth quarter

Cricket. We knew they gained a significant number of customers, but late yesterday they reported the full figures. The company added 385,000 net customers in the fourth quarter. This brings their total to 3.84 million, or just a tick below Virgin Mobile and MetroPCS. Leap made gains in old markets, expansion markets, and their mobile broadband service.

“We are pleased with the Company’s end-of-year performance in the midst of a weakened economy,” said Doug Hutcheson, Leap’s CEO and President. “Strong performance in the Company’s existing markets reflects the success of our market enhancement strategies, and our broadband customer additions were strong and within our guidance. Customer churn performed as we anticipated as customer tenure in our existing markets continues to increase. Customer buying patterns throughout the holiday season continued as expected, although we anticipate that lower-than-expected purchases of additional services may impact ARPU on a sequential quarterly basis. Once again, the business has shown its strength and resiliency in the face of economic uncertainty, and with our broad suite of products and unlimited services, we believe we are well positioned for continued customer growth and operating margin improvement in 2009 as the business gains additional scale and continues to focus on cost reduction initiatives.”

The breakdown was 173,000 net adds in existing markets, 133,000 in expansion markets, and 79,000 for broadband. Surprisingly, their churn was quite lower than both Metro and Virgin, at 3.8 percent. Neither of the other two came close: Metro was at 5.1 percent and Virgin at 4.8. As with Virgin, the real test will be how the company performs in the typically slow first quarter of 2009.]]>