Clearwire Corporationy reported financial and operating results for the fourth quarter and year ended December 31, 2007. Clearwire reported a 48% increase in revenue, as well as a $83.1 million loss, during the fourth quarter, making analysts suspect a deal with Sprint.
During Q4, 2007 Clearwire added 47,000 subscribers, bringing its total subscriber base to 394,000.
Benjamin G. Wolff, chief executive officer of Clearwire, said, “2007 was a banner year for our company as we made significant progress in both our new market development and our existing market operations. On the new market development side of our company, progress was marked by nearly doubling the size of our network footprint, launching 14 new markets, successfully completing initial trials of the mobile WiMAX technology that we expect to deploy in the second half of this year and increasing our spectrum portfolio by more than 3 billion MHz/POPs.
“With respect to the market operations side of our business, key milestones included a year-end subscriber base of nearly 400,000, which reflects an annual growth rate of approximately 91%, more than doubling our service revenues and, most importantly, increasing the number of our operating markets that were cash flow positive on a Market EBITDA basis from four in the fourth quarter of 2006 to 24 at the end of fourth quarter 2007.
“During the year, we increased our product portfolio to include VoIP and PC cards, continuing to demonstrate that our fast, simple, portable and reliable wireless broadband service has mass market appeal. Penetration in some of our most successful markets now exceeds 20% of the homes covered by our network in these markets, despite vigorous competition,” Wolff said.
“As we move ahead in 2008, we look forward to building on the success of our residential broadband and voice services through the planned deployment of mobile WiMAX networks, which for the first time will enable customers to enjoy all that the Internet has to offer when they are both at home and away, with a simple and seamless ‘True Broadband’ experience from a single, unified wireless network,” commented Wolff.