Alltel 2006 quarter 1 results

[Barry]

Alltel posted mixed first quarter results, with strong wireless growth and healthy customer numbers but lower net income due to merger-related expenses from the acquisition of Western Wireless Corp. and the upcoming spin-off of the company’s wireline operations.

Alltel’s total revenues were up almost 20 percent to $2.5 billion, in line with analysts’ expectations. But Alltel’s net income was about $300 million, which was 5 percent lower than the same period last year.

On the wireless side, Alltel beat analysts’ expectations on customer figures, adding 165,000 new customers and reducing its churn rate to 2 percent, a sequential reduction of 0.2 percent from the fourth quarter of 2005. The carrier also continued to buck the industry trend of lower average revenue per user—instead, it increased ARPU by about 4 percent compared to 2005’s first quarter, to $50.90. Of that, more than 5 percent—or $2.86—came from data services, a 59-percent increase over the first quarter of 2005.

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