Leap Wireless shows growth in second quarter

Cricket Communications, bats leadoff, and they definitely come through. In gross customer acquisitions, they beat the second quarter of 2007 by 17.2 percent, going from 462,434 adds to 542,005. This was certainly aided by the acquisition of Hargray Wireless, an under the radar move which doesn’t even show up in a Google News search. However, their net adds were even more impressive. In the second quarter of 2007, Leap added 126,791 subscribers after all was said and done. This year, they tacked on 171,171 subscribers, an increase of 35 percent. This includes 116,000 customers in their new AWS markets, and 11,000 wireless broadband customers. Churn was at 3.8 percent, a half point lower than last year’s mark. While this is far higher than the churn rate for the major postpaid carriers, it’s low for the prepaid sector. Hey, it’s not like Cricket has any contracts locking people in for two years. They ended the quarter with 3,305,251 customers, 23.6 percent more than they had at this time last year. Leap’s tough first quarter is still effecting their half-year numbers. Their net customer additions sit at 393,131 in 2008, a decrease of 11.7 percent from last year’s mark of 445,137. Hopefully, though, this past quarter signals a turnaround of sorts for Leap.]]>