Sprint CFO: HTC EVO can take on iPhone 4

NEW YORK--A senior Sprint Nextel executive is hopeful that the new HTC EVO 4G will entice Sprint customers to stick with the carrier instead of defecting to AT&T for the new iPhone 4 this summer.

At an investor conference here Wednesday, Robert Brust, Sprint's chief financial officer, warned that the summer is usually the time of year that Sprint and all other U.S. carriers except AT&T feel the sting from a new iPhone launch. For the past three years, Apple and AT&T have launched a new version of the iPhone in June and early July. And customers have left their service on other carriers and flocked to AT&T to get the new device.

"Every year all U.S. carriers, except AT&T, go through a little trauma called 'iPhone introduction,'" he said. "We have a little churn issue called 'People leaving to go to the iPhone.' As people's contracts expire they leave and go to AT&T for the iPhone."

But this year, Brust said he is hopeful that the company's first 4G phone, a Google Android device called HTC EVO 4G, will stem some of the losses.

For more on this story, read Sprint CFO: HTC EVO can take on iPhone 4 on an iPad on CNET News.