Cingular Wireless swings to profit of US$204 million in fourth quarter

ATLANTA (AP) - Cingular Wireless LLC, the largest U.S. cellphone provider, swung to a profit in the fourth quarter on strong subscriber and revenue growth.

The Atlanta-based company said Tuesday it earned $204 million US in the three months ending Dec. 31, compared with a loss of $495 million in the same period a year ago.

Revenue from October through December increased more than 24 per cent to $8.85 billion, compared with $7.12 billion a year ago.

Cingular said it finished 2005 with 54.1 million subscribers. It had a net increase of 1.8 million subscribers in the fourth quarter.

Cingular held on to the No. 1 spot in subscribers. But figures released Tuesday by Verizon Wireless show the No. 2 provider is fast gaining on Cingular.

Verizon Wireless, based in Bedminster, N.J., said it ended 2005 with 51.3 million customers, a 7.5 million customer increase over 2004. Cingular added 5 million customers last year.

For the year, Cingular said it made a profit of $333 million, compared to a profit of $201 million for all of 2004. Twelve-month revenue rose to $34.43 billion, compared to $19.57 billion for 2004.

The year-ago figures for the fourth quarter and full year were skewed somewhat by the fact that the merger of Cingular and AT&T Wireless Inc. was not completed until October 2004.

Average monthly revenue per user declined 1.3 per cent in the fourth quarter to $48.86, compared to $49.51 in the same period a year ago. Monthly churn - the rate at which customers switch to other providers - dropped to 2.1 per cent, compared to 2.6 per cent in the year-ago period.

Operating expenses in the fourth quarter totalled $8.3 billion.

Cingular is a joint venture of Atlanta-based BellSouth Corp. and San Antonio-based AT&T Inc., the renamed SBC Communications Inc. Verizon Wireless is a venture of telecommunications companies Verizon Communications Inc. of New York and Vodafone Group PLC of Britain.