Sprint misses big time on Q2 earnings; slashing 2,000 jobs

Sprint is definitely having a case of the Mondays based on its dismal second quarter earnings report published after the bell today.

The telecommunications giant reported a net loss of $765 million, or 19 cents per share (statement).

On a non-GAAP basis, the loss remained steady at 19 cents per share on a revenue of $8.5 billion.

Yet Wall Street was expecting a loss at just 11 cents per share with revenue of $8.69 billion.

But perhaps even more devastating was the revelation that the nation's third largest mobile provider would but cutting approximately 2,000 positions.

At the same time, Sprint added it has launched a management review to grow its leadership base through a mixture of internal and external candidates as well as SoftBank resources.

All in all, Sprint is hoping to reach $1.5 billion in annualized cost reductions compared to 2014 spending levels.

The immediate response was swift as Sprint shares started to slump by nearly seven percent initially in after-hours trading.

Promsing that Sprint is just starting "a transformational journey," CEO Marcelo Claure reflected further on the quarter in prepared remarks:

While the company continues to face headwinds, we have begun the first phase of our plan and are encouraged with the early results. Every day we are focused on improving our standing with consumers, improving our network and controlling our costs.

Here's a closer look at how Sprint did during the second quarter, by the numbers:

• The Sprint platform saw 590,000 net additions, attributed mostly to strong wholesale net additions numbering around 827,000.
• The Prepaid base also grew by 35,000 but Postpaid sustained net losses of 272,000.
• Sprint insisted that postpaid phone net losses for the platform slowed by nearly 60 percent in September.
• Looking closer at the platform by device, postpaid tablet net additions were 261,000 in the quarter, while phone losses were 500,000 and other device losses were 33,000.
• Sprint's 4G LTE coverage now spans 260 million people.
• The 2.5 GHz LTE deployment now covers 92 million people. Sprint maintained its projection to hit 100 million by the end of the year.
• Sprint had 55 million connections at the end of the quarter.

Sprint boasted it also "achieved its most successful iPhone launch in company history with record sales volumes," but did not add any numbers for reference.

For the current quarter, Wall Street expects revenue of $8.67 billion.