Sprint is in a much better position today than it was a year ago. Agressive pricing and better handsets make the company more competitive than it was when it was losing a million customers a quarter. It continues to lose subscribers but not quite as many. Earlier today US carrier Sprint announced third quarter revenues.

Here are some of the highlights: 

• The company served 48.3 million customers at the end of the third quarter of 2009, compared to 48.8 million at the end of the second quarter of 2009. 
• This includes 33.6 million post-paid subscribers (25.0 million on CDMA, 7.8 million on iDEN, and 870,000 Power Source users who utilize both networks), 5.7 million prepaid subscribers (5.2 million on iDEN and 500,000 on CDMA) and 8.9 million wholesale and affiliate subscribers, all of whom utilize our CDMA network.
• For the quarter, net retail subscribers declined by a total of 135,000 and net wireless customers declined by approximately 545,000, including net losses of 801,000 post- paid customers – comprising 271,000 CDMA and 530,000 iDEN customers (including a net 64,000 customers who transferred from the iDEN network to the CDMA network). The company gained a net 801,000 prepaid iDEN customers, offset by net losses of 135,000 prepaid CDMA customers.  
• Wireless Churn: Prepaid churn in the third quarter of 2009 was 6.65%, compared to 8.16% in the year-ago period and 6.38% in the second quarter of 2009.  The year-over-year improvement in churn is due to increased subscriber additions related to our national Boost Monthly Unlimited offering. 

Sprint has just over half the number of customers of Verizon. The company is competing on price for unlimited plans and more broadly with its unlimited mobile-to-mobile calling.

Having two Android handsets and the Pre makes it somewhat less vulnerable to consumer handset-related defections. But it will be difficult for Sprint to win post-paid customers going forward given how competitive the handset market has become. It may be possible to gain some customers from T-Mobile, which is increasingly battling with Sprint to be the low-cost 3G carrier. However Sprint's low-cost, pre-paid Boost unit will likely continue to see success among price sensitive consumers and potentially grab subscriber wins from smaller regional rivals. 

Sprint actually has the best 3G network among the major US carriers and should have access to 4G through Clearwire sooner than Verizon and AT&T can offer LTE. However it has failed to successfully market its network as a competitive differentiator. Its brand itself has been tarnished by past micues and previously bad customer service and the weakness of the brand remains a problem.