A month after emerging from bankruptcy proceedings, Leap Wireless International says it expects full-year 2004 revenue to come in between $820 million and $840 million. Separately, the company said its Cricket subsidiary plans to deploy a Comverse system to fuel the delivery of multimedia content.

The San Diego-based company expects to add 50,000 to 100,000 customers this year, with customer churn being recorded between 3.8 percent and 4.2 percent. The company is projecting EBITDA in the range of $215 million to $230 million. Leap provided its outlook projections after the market closed yesterday. As of mid-day EDT, Leap shares were down $4.02, or 15.8 percent, to $21.36.

"I believe the strong operational and financial results that we have experienced during the first half of 2004 and project for the full year reflect the solid platform we have established for our business as a high-value, low cost leader in the industry," Leap CEO Bill Freeman said. Leap exited bankruptcy with a clean balance sheet and reduced its debt load to roughly $390 million.

In other Leap news, its Cricket Communications subsidiary is launching the Comverse Multimedia Messaging Service Center to support the delivery of "high-volume" personal and application-based multimedia messaging for its customer base. Cricket's footprint spans 39 U.S. markets and serves more than 1.5 million customers.