Cingular Wireless, the joint mobile venture between SBC Communications Inc. and BellSouth Corp., today reveals its second quarter subscriber and financial figures in a BellSouth report. For the quarter ended in June, BellSouth's portion of Cingular revenue was $1.5 billion, meaning the total sales for Cingular were roughly $3.75 billion.

The carrier added 353,000 new customers for the period -- more than the 234,000 it reported in the first quarter, but lower than the 701,000 added during the same quarter one year ago. Churn for the quarter was 2.7 percent, compared with 2.9 percent in the previous quarter.

Cingular also plans to significantly cut its capital expenditures -- to between $4.2 billion and $4.6 billion, rather than the $5.4 billion to $5.8 billion previously announced. Although many analysts predicted a cut in spending, the amount was larger than expected by some. ''We believe the parent companies are trying to be conservative in capex spending,'' writes Raymond James & Associates analyst Ric Prentiss. ''Also, if Cingular is considering a merger with VoiceStream or AT&T Wireless, it might be beneficial to for them to slow down the capex during potential negotiating times.''

Cingular, AT&T Wireless and VoiceStream have been rumored for weeks to be in merger talks, but so far none of the companies has publicly confirmed any discussions. 

Overall, BellSouth reports sales of $5.78 billion -- a 3.4 percent drop from the previous year. Net income fell to $293 million, or 16 cents per share, compared with $880 million, or 47 cents per share the same quarter last year. At midday, BellSouth shares had fallen about 18 percent.

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