Revenue at Sprint Drops on Subscriber Defections Sprint posted a decline in third-quarter revenue on Wednesday, losing more subscribers than expected after the shutdown of its older network, and warned that customer defections would remain high in coming quarters. But investors shrugged off the results because they do not expect big improvements at the company, the third-place mobile operator in the United States, until the second half of 2014. The company did not change its financial targets for full-year 2013. Sprint shares were up 25 cents, or 3.74 percent, to close at $6.93. Sprint, which is 80 percent owned by SoftBank, is revamping its network after years of customer losses. Sprint reported net subscriber losses of 360,000 for the quarter. By comparison, Sprint's biggest rival, Verizon Wireless added 927,000 subscribers in the quarter, and the No. 2 provider, AT&T, added 363,000. T-Mobile, its smaller rival, is to report results next week. Sprint said it suffered from service problems in the quarter because of its work on the network as well as the expected loss of corporate customers because of the June shutdown of its iDen network, which was used mostly by business customers. Sprint's chief executive, Dan Hesse, told analysts on a conference call that Sprint's customer defection rate would continue to be at high levels into the middle of 2014, when the company expects to complete much of its network overhaul. Investors hope Sprint will compete better after the network upgrade and with financial backing from SoftBank of Japan, which bought a controlling stake in Sprint for $21.6 billion in July. Masayoshi Son, SoftBank's founder, has been praised by analysts and investors for quickly turning around his company's Japanese mobile operations. One hope is that Sprint will eventually improve its network and offer customers far more capacity than its bigger rivals at a cheaper price because of its Clearwire deal, which brought vast amounts of wireless airwaves. Sprint said on Wednesday that it expected to integrate the Clearwire spectrum into its network in markets with a population of 100 million people by the end of 2014. The company said the latest quarter was helped by a one-time, noncash $1.4 billion gain, net of taxes, related to its previously held investment in Clearwire. It did not report earnings per share because of the SoftBank deal. Sprint still expects 2013 adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of $5.1 billion to $5.3 billion, including the dilutive effects of the SoftBank and Clearwire transactions.