Sprint Nextel's CDMA exec John Garia steps down

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. mobile service provider Sprint Nextel Corp said on Friday that the president of its CDMA business unit, John Garcia, is leaving the company.

A spokeswoman for the company, Leigh Horner, confirmed that Garcia had stepped down effective Friday but did not give a reason for his departure.

Keith Cowan, the company's president of strategy and corporate development, will be the interim president of the CDMA unit, Horner said.

Sprint has been struggling with subscriber losses amid service problems, weak marketing and an economic downturn that especially hurt its low-credit customers.

(Reporting by Sinead Carew; writing by Aarthi Sivaraman; Editing by Gary Hill)