The slightly slower subscriber growth and a reshuffling of its management team notwithstanding, Clearwire Corp. has posted a marginally narrower year-on-year first quarter loss, largely due to increased sales.

The Kirkland, Washington-based company - which is 51 percent owned by Sprint Nextel - reported that its first-quarter loss had narrowed to $71.06 million from the year-before proforma loss of $76.44 million.

Meanwhile, Clearwire's the first-quarter revenue jumped 21 percent to $62.1 million, marginally less than the Reuters average analysts' estimates of $62.9 million.

Analyst Kevin Roe, of Roe Equity Research, said that though the figures posted by Clearwire were approximately in line with his expectations, the change in management was a surprising move from the company - William Morrow was appointed Clearwire's new CEO in March, and Michael Sievert joins as Chief Commercial Officer.

As regards the subscriber additions during the quarter, with the introduction of its fourth-generation WiMax high-speed wireless network in Portland, Oregon, Clearwire reported nearly 25,000 net subscriber additions, while the UBS analyst John Hodulik said that he anticipated 20,000 net additions.

With its total subscriber base touching 500,000 during the quarter, Clearwire intends expanding its WiMax service to 80 markets, thereby reaching out to a potential 120 million customers by 2010-end; however, Morrow said that this depended largely on the availability of capital.