Clearwire: Q3 Revs Beat; EPS Misses; Slow Sub Growth

Clearwire (CLWR) this morning posted third quarter revenu e of $60.8 million, ahead of consensus expectations of $55.5 million. But the company’s loss in the quarter of $1.01 a share was a penny worse than expectations. The company noted that churn in the quarter rose to 3%, up from 2.3% in the second quarter and 2.6% a year ago, due to “significantly reduced marketing efforts” in its pre-WiMax markets and “increased bad debt-related churn reflecting a difficult consumer economic environment.” The company added just 8,300 net new subscribers in the quarter, although current sub count of 469,000 was still up sharply from 348,000 a year ago. Gross margin the quarter fell to 27%, from 29% a year ago, due to “the significantly increased number of network cell sites that the company is leasing in advance of its planned mobile WiMax market rollout.” CLWR today is down 20 cents, or 2.5%, to $7.84. (link)