For the first quarter ending March 31, the Overland Park, Kansas-based outfit posted net income of $472m, or $0.31 per share, compared with $225m or $0.16 per share in the same period a year earlier. Sales meanwhile rose 3% to $6.94bn up from $6.71bn a year ago. Analysts had on average expected it to earn $0.32 a share on revenues of $6.9bn.

Sprint also reaffirmed its financial forecast for the year, predicting annual operating income in a range of $4.3bn to $4.5bn and full-year revenue growth in low single digit percentages.

Sprint’s solid performance in the first quarter reflects the continued dedication of our employees in pursuing 2005 objectives while also focusing on our proposed merger with Nextel and the planned subsequent spin-off of our local operations, said CEO Gary Forsee in a statement.

Back in December last year, Sprint agreed to buy fifth ranked mobile operator Nextel Communications for $35bn. The new company will be known as Sprint Nextel and is expected to have the highest average revenue per user in the US mobile industry. This is because Nextel’s business customers, who pay higher monthly bills, are generally considered to be the most loyal among national wireless carriers.

For the first quarter Sprint revealed that its average monthly revenue per wireless subscriber (ARPU) was flat from the fourth quarter at $61, while customer turnover (churn) fell to 2.5% from 2.7%.

The mobile operation continues to be the main source of growth at the communications giant, and it added 1.3 million customers during the quarter, a 34% increase from a year earlier. This pushed the unit’s sales up 12.5% to $3.9bn. Sprint said it added 518,000 direct wireless subscribers during the quarter, as well as 787,000 from its thriving wholesale business.

Revenues in its local telephone business was flat at $1.1bn, as access lines fell 3% from the same period a year earlier. As mentioned above, Sprint plans to spin off its local business in 2006 after it closes the Nextel deal.

At its long-distance arm, revenues fell 10% to $1.7bn, but costs fell 17.5% due to lower depreciation after the outfit wrote off $3.5bn on the value of the unit’s assets last October.

Sprint said it now had more than 250,000 phone lines through wholesale agreements with cable companies. It agreed earlier this year to test a wireless resale agreement with Time Warner’s (TWX) cable arm, part of a strategy to sell services to cable companies seeking to battle the dominant local telephone carriers.

Shares in the company rose 1.5% to $22.89 on the New York Stock Exchange, as of 4.45pm BST on Wednesday.