Sprint (http://www.sprint.com) reported losses for its winter quarter despite pretty good iPhone sales. The carrier sold 1.5 million Apple smartphones during the quarter — with 44% going to new customers.

Sprint Nextel reported a net loss of US$863 million and a diluted net loss of $.29 per share for the first quarter of 2012. This compares to a net loss of $439 million and a diluted net loss of $.15 per share in the first quarter of 2011.

The company had wireless service revenues of $7.2 billion during the quarter, an increase of more than 7% year-over-year. The company reported total net subscriber additions of nearly 1.1 million during the first quarter, bringing total ending subscribers to a record 56 million.

The total number of customers on the Sprint platform grew almost 4% sequentially including 263,000 postpaid net subscriber additions, 870,000 prepaid net subscriber additions and 785,000 wholesale and affiliate net subscriber additions.