Earnings: Clearwire Ends 2007 With 400K Subs; Shares Tumble On Lower 2008 Expectations

Clearwire (NSDQ: CLWR), which is building out wireless residential broadband in the U.S. based on WiMax technology, reported Q4 and 2007 earnings today, saying that for the year losses widened to $727.5 million on revenues of $151.4 million, which increased 51 percent compared to the year ago period. But shares fell this morning based on its 2008 projections. It said for the current year it expects revenues of up to $215 million. Analysts polled by Thomson (NYSE: TOC) Financial expected revenues of about $271 million, according to AP. Shares fell $1.65 or about 11.4 percent, to $12.85 a share.

Release. Webcast.

Other 2007 results include:

-- Clearwire ended the year with 394,000 subscribers, adding 188,000 subscribers during the year. In 2008, the company expects to grow the number of subscribers by up to 35 percent to 530,000.

-- Launched 14 new markets in 2007, almost doubling its coverage area to 50 markets. Completed trials of the mobile WiMax technology in Portland—all markets launched in 2008 will be using true mobile WiMax technology.

-- ARPU for Q4 2007 was just over $36, slightly lower than the year-ago quarter because of an increase in holiday season sales promotions and higher international bad debt expense. Churn totaled 2.4% in Q4 compared to 1.9 percent in the same period 2006 in both U.S. and European markets.

-- At the beginning of 2008, Clearwire had more than 36.0 million POPs in various stages of design, development and construction, which Clearwire believes provides it with flexibility to pace market deployment based on the availability of capital.