Today, Sprint Nextel reported its financial results for the fourth quarter of 2011, announcing an operating income of $842 million in the quarter and $5.1 billion for 2011 as a whole. The company also revealed that wireless service revenues increased 7% year-over-year in the holiday quarter. 

Sprint announced that it 1.8 million total iPhones in the quarter, the first three-month period that it offered Apple's smartphone. 40% of sales were to new customers, according to the press release. The carrier also reported net subscriber additions of 1.6 million in Q4, the best it has been in six years. 

The company continued to rapidly grow the number of prepaid and wholesale and affiliate subscribers in the fourth quarter. Prepaid net additions were 507,000 bringing total prepaid subscribers to nearly 14.8 million at the end of 2011, an increase of 20 percent since the end of 2010. Net additions of 954,000 for wholesale and affiliates in the fourth quarter were the highest in seven years.

Additionally, the company reported a net loss of $1.3 billion and a diluted loss of $.43 per share for the quarter, which includes pre-tax, non-cash charges of $241 million, or $.08 per share, consisting of asset and impairment charges of $78 million on property, plant and equipment, $135 million on Sprint’s investment in Clearwire and $28 million in severance costs.