US carrier Sprint asserted in its earnings report and presentation that the carrier had stabilized and cited a number of areas of improved performance. However, it also reported these numbers:

• The company served 49.3 million customers at the end of 2008, compared to 53.8 million at the end of 2007. The credit quality of our customer base improved every quarter in 2008, and prime customers represent almost 84% of the post-paid base, compared to 79% a year ago.
• For the quarter, total wireless customers declined by a net 1.3 million, including losses of 1.1 million post-paid customers and 314,000 prepaid users, which was slightly offset by a 146,000 increase in the number of wholesale and affiliate subscribers.

Sprint has the best 3G network (though people may not believe that) and is the most competitive when it comes to pricing. However Sprint continues to lose a million wireless customers a quarter, for a total of 4.5 million customers lost last year. The chief beneficiaries of Sprint's defections appear to be AT&T and Verizon.   

Sprint faces challenges on a number of fronts and no single factor can be blamed for these defections. Sprint's brand as a whole is wounded. A history of poor customer service (though that's changing) and the absence of competitive handsets are all contributing. Sprint may say the Instinct is competitive or claim the HTC Touch Pro is compelling -- not so. 

The Palm Pre is supposed to make its appearance relatively soon and Samsung is supposed to come out with an Android phone for Sprint at some point this year. Sprint needs these handsets pretty desperately to return some "sizzle" to its relatively unimpressive handset lineup (although BlackBerry fans can find plenty of offerings). It may also need to cut prices (again) to get attention and/or retain customers. 

In my particular case only the promise of one of these new handsets -- Windows 6.5 won't be out until later this year --  is holding me back from an AT&T defection.