TEXT OF STORY

MARK AUSTIN THOMAS: Sprint Nextel will report its second quarter earnings today. Last quarter its shares dropped 15 percent. Marketplace’s Lisa Napoli takes a look at how the year-old marriage between the two companies has fared.

LISA NAPOLI: This month marks the one year anniversary for Sprint Nextel. When they got hitched, they two telecom giants brought different assets to the table.

Sprint was steeped in telecom history and Nextel snared business clients with its walkie-talkie phone feature.

Analysts say merging the companies technologies and corporate cultures hasn’t been easy.

Average monthly customer revenue is down, and Sprint Nextel’s been trailing other carriers in attracting subscribers.

But Mark Donovan of the M:Metric says there’s one area where the combined companies shine:

MARK DONOVAN: At least on the data side of the house, this is people playing games, downloading applications, using e-mail, browsing the Web, all that data stuff, in that area of the world they’re doing well.

And that’s the area of the wireless world expected to grow. About half of all mobile subscribers use those services now.

In Los Angeles, I’m Lisa Napoli for Marketplace.