Sprint shares rise on hope over customer losses

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Shares of Sprint Nextel Corp (S.N: Quote, Profile, Research) rose as much as 9 percent on Wednesday as investors hoped that first-quarter customer losses would not be as steep as feared after a report from AT&T Inc (T.N: Quote, Profile, Research).

Shares in Sprint, the No. 3 U.S. mobile service, were up 32 cents, or 4 percent, at $7.37 on Wednesday, their second day of gains. The stock rose as high as $7.69 on the New York Stock Exchange.

On Tuesday, AT&T reported 705,000 new postpaid users who pay monthly bills for the first quarter, disappointing some analysts.

Stanford Group analyst Michael Nelson said investors saw AT&T's results as a sign that Sprint may not lose 1.2 million postpaid customers in the first quarter, as predicted.

"It could be a relief rally coming off AT&T yesterday," said Nelson who noted Sprint's forecast represented an almost doubling of customer losses compared with the fourth quarter.

"They're still losing customers," he said. "But there's a huge gap between what they did last quarter and expectations for this quarter ... if they come in somewhere in between, it would be viewed as positive."

Sprint is set to report quarterly earnings on May 12. The No. 2 U.S. mobile service, Verizon Wireless, a venture of Verizon Communications Inc (VZ.N: Quote, Profile, Research) and Vodafone Group Plc (VOD.L: Quote, Profile, Research), is expected to report first-quarter numbers on April 28.

Sprint shares had closed up 5 percent at $7.05 on the New York Stock Exchange on Tuesday.

(Reporting by Sinead Carew; editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)