Sprint Corp.’s recent disclosure that it expects a net loss in wireless customers this quarter helped send the company’s PCS tracking stock below $2 on Wednesday for the first time.

PCS shares fell to $1.89 before closing for the day at $2.02, down 5.16 percent. Trading was heavy with 19.6 million shares trading hands, more than twice the average daily volume of 9.5 million shares.

The company’s FON stock, which tracks Sprint’s long-distance, local and other nonwireless divisions, closed at $9.37, down 2 percent.

Dan Wilinsky, a company spokesman, declined to comment on the wireless stock’s performance.

“We don’t comment on the vagaries of the market,” he said.

Industry observers said the decline was a clear response to Sprint’s statement Monday that it would lose customers this quarter. Some added that it showed the need for the wireless market to consolidate.

Sprint PCS said higher-than-expected “customer churn” had led to its change in fortune.

Much of the churn an industry term for customers leaving the service resulted from a program known as Clear Pay established to go after customers with poor credit, the company said. Sprint closed accounts of customers in the program who failed to pay bills or engaged in fraudulent payments.

Clear Pay is not a prepaid wireless service, although it caters to customers who might traditionally be served by prepaid plans. Prepaid programs have proven unsuccessful for several wireless companies, including Sprint early in the company’s history.

Most Clear Pay customers must pay a deposit to get the service, their account comes with a spending limit and they are cut off as soon as they are late on a monthly payment.

In a letter sent this week to employees of Sprint PCS, Chuck Levine, president of the wireless division, said the company was modifying the program to reduce churn in the fourth quarter.

But with five other national wireless carriers vying for the same customers, Sprint needs to win all the customers it can including those with poor credit while avoiding customers who fail to pay.

“Everyone is going after the same customers slashing prices and expanding service offerings,” said Harold Furchtgott-Roth, a former member of the Federal Communications Commission. “All of that is great for the consumer, but it has reduced the projected revenues for a lot of these companies.”

Some people think industry consolidation is inevitable.

“We have six nationwide carriers today,” said Craig Mathias, principal with Farpoint Group, an industry consulting firm that primarily serves equipment manufacturers. “We will probably have four in two years.”