Sprint expects pace of customer defections to slow in holiday quarter

(Reuters) - U.S. wireless carrier Sprint Corp expects the pace of customer defections to slow in the key holiday quarter, helped by higher promotions, its chief financial officer said on Tuesday.

Sprint expects its churn — the rate of defections — to rise 15 basis points (bps) quarter-over-quarter in the three months ending Dec. 31, CFO Tarek Robbiati said at a UBS media conference. Churn rose 20 bps sequentially in the holiday quarter last year, he noted.

"We are going to every market, figure out what are the root causes and address that," Robbiati said, speaking about Sprint's strategy to limit churn.

Robbiati also said Sprint had fully moved on from any merger-related talks with T-Mobile US Inc after several months of discussions collapsed last month.

Days after the talks collapsed, Sprint parent SoftBank Group's CEO Masayoshi Son had said Sprint could grow on its own but would still consider a deal with T-Mobile if it could get management control.

(Reporting by Laharee Chatterjee in Bengaluru; editing by Sai Sachin Ravikumar)