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HTC Evo 4G

The Overland Park, Kan.-based company said it added 111,000 customers in the April-June quarter, compared to a loss of 257,000 in the same period last year, but lost 228,000 more lucrative post-paid subscribers.

Since it bought out Nextel five years ago, Sprint has been hemorrhaging customers. That network, which is incompatible with Sprint's, features a walkie-talkie push-to-talk service. But that unique technology also limits the side to a small selection of smartphone, resulting in over a million subscriber exoduses every year. Hesse acknowledged that the Nextel business is still doing poorly.

The company has also had issues holding onto post-paid subscribers, which have left by the millions over the last several years.

"You had a business that was in rapid decline," said Dan Hesse, Sprint's chief executive. "Now we got it to stable. Then the next phase will be growth."

Sprint has hoped to win over contract customers with its new higher-speed fourth-generation, or 4G, network. But the first handset to run the technology, the Evo from HTC, has been in short supply.

Its lone bright spot -- in prepaid -- shows strong growth.

Sprint posted a second-quarter loss of $760 million from a $384 million loss a year ago. Revenue fell 1.4 percent to $8.0 billion.