It looked, for a moment there, like Apple was riding to the rescue at Sprint. Yesterday, the telecommunications company reported a smaller loss than expected in the first quarter. It sold 1.5m iPhones in its second quarter of offering the device, and some 660,000 of those went to new customers. The stock spiked 7 per cent in early trading. A slightly harder look reveals that growth remains dull at Sprint – which, combined with greyish first-quarter results from AT&Tand Verizon, paint a dreary picture of the US telecoms industry. Sprint’s namesake wireless brand did add 263,000 postpaid customers in the first quarter. But that is an expansion of less than 1 per cent. And if you add in Sprint’s rotting Nextel brand, postpaid subscribers fell by 192,000.
有那么一瞬间，仿佛苹果(Apple)正出手解救Sprint公司一样。该电信公司昨日公布一季度报告，亏损略低于预期。在它销售苹果iPhone手机的第二个季度中，销售量达150万部，其中66万部由新客户购买。其股价在早盘飙升了7%。但仔细观察发现，Sprint的增长仍较平淡，这与美国其它两家运营商AT&T和Verizon在第一季度的沉闷业绩一起，描绘出美国电信业的不景气画面。Sprint的同名无线品牌确实在第一季度为其新增了26.3万后付费客户。但这一扩张还不到1%。如果算上Sprint旗下糟糕的Nextel品牌，则后付费客户数量减少了19.2万。