Sprint posts widened loss, teams with LightSquared

NEW YORK — Sprint says its loss widened in the second quarter due to investment losses and a tax expense, but its subscriber figures showed a fragile turnaround is continuing.

The country’s No. 3 wireless carrier also announced that it will be building and operating the national wireless broadband network for LightSquared, a startup financed by a hedge fund.

Its shares fell 7 percent to $4.79 in premarket trading.

Sprint Nextel Corp. added a net 1.1 million subscribers in the April to June period. However, it lost 101,000 subscribers on contract-based plans, which are the most lucrative.

Its net loss was $847 million, or 28 cents per share, for the three months ended June 30. That’s bigger than its loss of $760 million, or 25 cents per share, a year ago.

Revenue rose 4 percent to $8.3 billion.