EarthLink beats analysts’ estimates

EarthLink today announced a wider loss and a shrinking company base because of price increases for the third quarter.

EarthLink hiked its prices in July and August, leading to a net drop-off of about 100,000 subscribers, giving it a customer base on 4.8 million subscribers at the end of the quarter. EarthLink’s narrowband customers dropped 4% to 4.2 million, but EarthLink said many of those customers were upsold to broadband service.

During the last few weeks EarthLink has launched cable broadband services over AOL Time Warner’s cable network--something the media giant is required to do as part of the company’s merger agreement with the federal government. Total revenues for broadband grew 11% during the second quarter to $45.1 million, and the business is quickly becoming a major source of revenue for the ISP, EarthLink said.

Including merger-related costs, EarthLink’s loss was $84.4 million, or 62 cents per share. Without one-time charges EarthLink loss narrowed from $41.3 million a year earlier to $22.7 million, or 17 cents per share. Thomson Financial/First Call consensus estimates projected third-quarter losses at 19 cents a share.

--Kevin Fitchard, staff writer