Sprint Reports Q1 2013 Results: 5 Million Smartphones Sold, $643 Million Loss

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Sprint has this morning reported its financial results for the first quarter of 2013, and they show yet another loss for America’s third-largest carrier. The company announced a $643 million net loss on $8.79 billion revenue, though it did manage to generate a positive operating revenue of $29 million.

Sprint sold 5 million smartphones during the period, 1.5 million of which were iPhones.

Sprint added 23,000 postpaid subscribers to its network, which is a 91% drop compared to the year-ago quarter. It saw wireless revenues of $5.8 billion, and overall revenue grew slightly year-over-year to $8.79 billion.

Smartphones continue to do well for Sprint, and the company described its 5 million smartphones sales as “strong.” 1.5 million of those smartphones were iPhones, which shows that Apple’s device is still a popular device on Sprint — though sales did drop slightly from 2.2 million last quarter.

Sprint continues its work on closing down Nextel, which currently has just 1.3 million subscribers remaining. But not all former Nextel customers are transferring to Sprint. Of the 572,000 that left Nextel this quarter, only 263,000 moved over to Sprint.

Sprint CEO Dan Hesse will hold an earnings call at 8 a.m. ET today for analysts and investors.