[April 20, 2006] Record sales boost Cingular earnings Tweet (San Antonio Express-News (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Apr. 20--Atlanta-based Cingular Wireless, the nation's largest wireless phone provider, posted a $354 million first-quarter profit as a large number of new customers helped boost sales to record levels. The company Wednesday reported the profit on revenue of $8.98 billion for the quarter ended March 31. That compares with a net loss of $240 million on revenue of $8.23 billion for the same quarter of 2005, which the company attributed to costs of buying AT&T Wireless Services Inc. Driven in part by a new retail relationship with Radio Shack, the company added 1.7 million customers during the quarter. Those additions exceeded analyst expectations. Monthly customer turnover dropped to 1.9 percent for the quarter, a new record. "We're hanging onto our customers a lot better than we did before," Cingular Chief Financial Officer Pete Ritcher told analysts during the company's earnings call. "It puts less pressure on us to go out and chase new customers." Cingular worked during the quarter to upgrade its network and improve customers' experience as it continued to integrate the operations of AT&T Wireless, which it bought in October 2004. Even though sales of products such as text messaging and video and music services rose for the quarter, average revenue per user dropped. Officials attributed that to larger fees the company pays to its product resellers. Cingular is co-owned by San Antonio-based AT&T Inc., which has a $67 billion deal pending to take over Atlanta's BellSouth Corp., its partner in the wireless giant. Once the deal closes later this year, AT&T will have total ownership of Cingular. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]