Results this week were a mixed bag for two of the nation's prepaid wireless operators.
Leap Wireless International, which offers services under the "Cricket" brand, wooed 73,000 voice subscribers in the third quarter and ended the three-month period with 9,511 customer additions. That represented a dramatic improvement from 199,949 subscriber losses in the same period a year ago and beat analysts' estimates of 30,000 new voice customers, Bloomberg reported, citing Sanford C. Bernstein & Co.
MetroPCS Communications wasn't as fortunate as its customer growth slowed down significantly. MetroPCS courted 69,384 customers, reflecting a 69 percent decrease in growth when compared to 223,249 adds in the third quarter of 2010.
MetroPCS also reported an increase in churn -- a measure of customer disconnections -- from 3.8 percent in the third quarter of 2010 to 4.5 percent in the most recent period. Meanwhile, Leap said its churn improved to 3.8 percent from 5.5 percent during the year-ago quarter.
San Diego-based Leap ended the quarter with nearly 5.8 million customers while Dallas-based MetroPCS served roughly 9.1 million customers as of Sept. 30.
