Sprint Nextel Corp. announced that its losses slowed in the fourth-quarter, however, the firm also added fewer so-called pre-paid customers than Wall Street expected, prompting that the business was hit by the intensifying competition at the low end of the market.

Sprint Nextel Corp.'s subscriber losses slowed in the fourth quarter, an encouraging sign for a wireless carrier that has lost millions of customers over the past few years.

Sprint reports a net loss 148,000 subscribers over the last three months of 2009, far less than the 545,000 who fled in the third quarter, the carrier posted Wednesday.

In addition, its witnesses a quarterly loss of $980 million, or 34 cents per share, for the last three months of 2009, compared with a loss of $1.62 billion, or 57 cents per share, the previous year.

Sprint also witnesses pre-paid as its vital growth engine, going as far as acquiring Virgin Mobile USA as an alternative distribution channel to satisfy consumers seeking to save money and get out of long-term service contracts.

The current figures reveal that prepaying customers pay $31 per month on an average, compared with $55 for customers who agree to long-term service contracts. Sprint is also heavily subsidizing new handsets for contract-signing customers to compete with AT&T Inc. and Verizon Wireless.