Sprint’s revival continues with over 1 million new subscribers, though there’s still red ink

Sprint reported its fiscal fourth-quarter 2014 earnings, with the company reporting a net addition of 1.2 million subscribers, the highest total in three years. Even so, there are still red flags that should temper expectations moving forward.

The 1.2 million new subscribers represent a significant boost when compared to last quarter and last year, when Sprint reported a net addition of 967,000 subscribers and a net loss of 383,000 subscribers, respectively. Out of those new subscribers, 546,000 were prepaid subscribers, a sharp turnaround from the 364,000 subscribers Sprint lost during the same period last year.

Related: Radioshack gets green light to co-brand 1,700 stores with Sprint

Moving on to postpaid, which is arguably Sprint’s biggest money maker, the carrier reporting a net gain of 211,000, even though it reported net postpaid phone losses of 201,000. Though it’s not a smile-inducing statistic, Sprint’s net postpaid phone losses were lower than reported losses the year before, which totaled 693,000.

In total, Sprint reported a net operating revenue of $8.3 billion, a 7 percent decrease from the previous year. In addition, Sprint reported a net loss of $224 million, a big step backwards from the $151 million net loss the carrier reported the prior year. Even with these backward steps, Sprint now has 57.1 million accounts connected with it, 29 million of which are postpaid, with 15.8 million prepaid subscribers.

Overall, Sprint had a very positive quarter, at least when compared to its previous quarters. The carrier hopes to continue riding this momentum with three new initiatives:

Sprint Direct 2 You, which will have a Sprint representative hand delivering a Sprint smartphone to your home.Free Wi-Fi Calling for iPhone, which will allow iPhone 5S, iPhone 5C, iPhone 6, and iPhone 6 Plus owners to make free calls while connected to Wi-Fi.Free International Value Roaming, which will give Sprint subscribers free 2G roaming when traveling to Latin America, Europe, and Japan.

Whether Sprint can maintain the momentum is something we’ll keep an eye on, as it tries to hold the No. 3 spot in the United States.

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Motorola ordered to cough up $10 million to Fujifilm for patent infringement

Motorola Mobility hit a bit of a snag earlier today when a court ordered the Lenovo-owned company to pay $10 million to Fujifilm for using its patented technology without permission, reports Reuters.

This patent riff-raff began in 2012, when Fujifilm originally sued Motorola for $40 million. Fujifilm argued that Motorola infringed on four of its patents, three of which dealt with digital camera functions. Unfortunately for Fujifilm, the San Francisco jury concluded that Motorola only infringed on one of the four patents: a patent that deals with converting color images to monochrome.

Related: Motorola president says Moto X 2015 is on schedule, but Moto tablets aren’t planned

Motorola wanted to cancel all of the four patents Fujifilm brought forth, arguing they were either relatively old or didn’t stand out when compared to similarly patented inventions. The jury only saw eye to eye with Motorola on three of the four patents and decided that Motorola did infringe on the fourth patent. The end result is that Motorola was ordered to pay Fujifilm significantly less than what Fujifilm originally sought.

Regardless, it looks like Motorola doesn’t want to be on the hook for that fourth patent. “We are pleased with the verdict related to three out of the four patents and are evaluating our options on the one patent on which we did not prevail,” said Motorola spokesperson William Moss in an email sent to Reuters.

Motorola’s response isn’t surprising and could indicate that the company is willing to draw this patent battle out. Given its four-year patent battle with Apple and year-long dispute with Microsoft, Motorola seems to be very familiar with patent disputes. Motorola ended its patent trial with Apple by agreeing with the Cupertino-based company to dismiss all patent litigation. Meanwhile, its patent dispute with Microsoft was tossed out by the International Trade Commission (ITC).

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