Sprint cuts staff to save up to $2.5bn

He’s also cut operating costs, helping boost earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization to $2.08 billion in the fiscal first quarter that ended June 30.

The wireless carrier has frozen external hiring and all expenditures require the approval of the finance department, WSJ reported, citing the memo sent to staff by the new chief financial officer.

The company has said that it previously cut $1.5 billion in expenses in the last 12 months.

Sprint may be on the verge of cutting up to $2.5 billion in costs and could have layoffs, according to a Dow Jones report Thursday.

Robbiati added that he will henceforth be going through the company’s expenses with a fine-toothed comb. “The main thing to consider when requesting to spend money is to take an owner’s mindset by treating every dollar as if it were your own”, he wrote. “It is likely that a few jobs will be impacted but it’s premature to discuss the details as we are in the early stages of the process”, said Sprint. T-Mobile says it intends to buy enough low-band spectrum to cover the entire nation; Sprint says it can improve coverage with its existing spectrum by increasing the number of cell towers. Sprint had around 31,000 people on its payroll at the end of March; the executive didn’t estimate how many jobs might be lost as part of the process.

The announcement comes days after Sprint said it would not participate in the next major auction of wireless airwaves, a move that would save the company billions but limit its options for network upgrades. “What Sprint needs is true market differentiation”.

“We believe the steps we are taking across our business are critical to ensuring Sprint is a viable, successful and sustainable business for the foreseeable future”. “You’ve heard our CEO talk many times about cost structure not being in line with the industry and the need to reduce costs and we’ll leave no stone unturned in terms of opportunities to cut costs”.

Sprint’s share price rose by almost 5 per cent on the news.