Sprint Churn Bottoming?

Sprint Nextel has lost one million customers since the end of 2007, a fact mirrored in surveys of ChangeWave Research members.

The more important news, though, may be a possible bottoming. It is possible Sprint finally has stabilized its churn problem.

In March 2008, for example, a survey of 3,597 consumers found 11 percent reporting they are Sprint Nextel customers.

Some 31 percent said they use Verizon while 28 percent reported using and AT&T. To be sure, that indication of market share among survey respondents does not track very well with other measurements of market share, such as the carriers own quarterly and annual reports of subscribership.

No surprise: Sprint customers are least satisfied of all of the major provider customers. When asked how likely they were to change service providers in the next 6 months, a relatively high percentage of Sprint customers (21 percent) said they're likely to switch, compared to just 10 percent of Verizon customers and 11 percent for AT&T' users.

When people do change cellular service providers, very few are switching to Sprint (three percent ). The good news is that the number of switchers looking to join Sprint actually turned up one percentage point since the last ChangeWave survey.