Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Sprint Drags Down Rat Shack of Is Rat Shack Dragging Sprint?

From: Marcel <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 03 Jan 2003 14:40:11 -0500

Sprint Drags Down Rat Shack or is Rat Shack Dragging Sprint?

Weak RadioShack Quarter Reflects Slow Sprint PCS Sales
BY WIRELESS WEEK STAFF
JANUARY 3, 2003

Sprint PCS problems with customer activations helped drag down the fourth quarter
performance of the nation's biggest
independent wireless retailer, RadioShack Corporation, but the store chain sees improving
performance up ahead.
RadioShack told financial analysts today that its fourth-quarter earnings per share
expectations were for a profit in the range of
58 cents to 60 cents per share, less than its earlier forecasted range of 63 cents to 68
cents. The company pointed to slow sales of accessories related to DVD players and radio
controlled toys for the reduction but also fingered weaker than expected sales and gross
margins for Sprint PCS products beginning in November.

RadioShack also told analysts that the growth rates for Sprint - which typically gets
about 25 percent of its gross subscriber
additions through RadioShack - were slowed by a new customer activation process that took
longer than expected. Lehman Brothers noted that the timing of the slowdown also coincided
with the reinstitution of a deposit requirement for the carrier's ClearPay product, which
also had a well-publicized negative impact on Sprint's subscribership in the third
quarter.
Lehman noted in a commentary that sales of Verizon Wireless products carried by RadioShack
were strong in the fourth
quarter, indicating that overall wireless customer demand was evident. However, both
Circuit City and Best Buy also have reported weaker than expected sales due partly to the
performance of wireless.

Lehman's John Bensche now estimates that Sprint had about 185,000 net subscriber adds in
the fourth quarter.
Sprint's PCS tracking shares were down more than 9 percent in mid-day Eastern time
trading.

http://www.wirelessweek.com/index.asp?layout=newsat2direct&starting=2&pubdate=01/03/03

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From: Marcel <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 03 Jan 2003 15:24:56 -0500

Looking deeper into the problem-

Rat Shack missed their numbers for 3 years in a row.

Out of the 19 Anal-yst covering Rat Shack not one has it as a buy.

Rat Shack is reporting lower gross sales and lower-than-expected margins on wireless phones.

So who is dragging who?