NEW YORK: Cingular Wireless LLC, the largest cellphone service provider in the U.S., reported its second quarter profit more than tripled to $540 million from $147 million recorded in the corresponding previous year quarter. Atlanta-based Cingular, which is a joint venture of BellSouth Corporation and AT&T Inc, said it added more subscribers at a faster pace and its churn rate was minimal.

The company had revenue of $9.2 billion compared to $8.61 in the same quarter last year.

The company said it ended the quarter with 57.3 million subscribers, which included a gain of 1.5 million net subscriber additions during the quarter, which compares to 952,000 in the second quarter of 2005 and to 1.7 million in the first quarter of 2006.

President and chief executive officer Stan Sigman said the company continued to make strong progress in the quarter, which was record-setting on a number of fronts. It has the highest-ever net income, which increased 267 per cent over last year, he said.

Cingular acquired AT&T Wireless in October 2004. Its parent companies, BellSouth and AT&T, are set to merge at the end of the year in a $67 billion deal. The Cingular name will be phased out with this merger.

Sigman said the strong performance showed that the acquisition has worked.

The company’s second-quarter average revenue per user (ARPU) was $48.84, which is down 3.3 per cent from a year ago. However, ARPU from data services helped to offset the decline. It raised 38 per cent to $5.77.

In the six months, the company had net income of $894 million on a
revenue of $18.2 billion, compared with a net loss of $93 million on revenue of $16.8 billion in the corresponding 2005 quarter.