US Cellular Turns To Profit On Gains

(RTTNews) - United States Cellular Corp. (USM) on Wednesday reported a swing to profit in the fourth quarter, reflecting gains on sale of licenses and assets. Revenues for the quarter plunged 18 percent, as the mobile-phone service provider continued to lose subscribers.

The Chicago, Illinois-based company reported fourth-quarter profit of $1.6 million or $0.02 a share compared to a loss of $39.6 million or $0.47 a share last year.

On average, analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected loss of $0.80 for the quarter. Analysts' estimates typically exclude one-time items.

Fourth-quarter results included gain on asset disposals of $3 million and gain on license sale and exchanges of $255 million, among other items.

Chief Executive Kenneth Meyers said, "We took important strategic actions in 2013 that position U.S. Cellular to compete more effectively. We divested underperforming markets to focus on markets where we're stronger, we converted to a new billing and operational support system to enable more effective service and product delivery, and we introduced Apple products and shared data plans to monetize the continued growth in data usage on the 4G LTE network."

However, service revenues for the quarter dropped 18 percent to $825.13 million from $1.01 billion a year ago. Total operating revenues slid 19 percent year-over-year to $902.72 million from $1.12 billion. Four analysts had a consensus revenue estimate of $938.2 million for the quarter.

Total postpaid customers at the fourth quarter-end dropped to 4.27 million from 5.13 million at last year-end. Average revenue per postpaid user dropped to $53.53 from $54.56 last year.

USM is currently trading at $37.16, down $3.55 or 8.72%, on the NYSE.