Abstract. Let M n be a compact hypersurface with constant mean curvature H in S n+1 . Denote by S the squared norm of the second fundamental form of M . We prove that there exists a positive constant γ(n) depending only on n such that if |H| ≤ γ(n) and β(n, H) ≤ S ≤ β(n, H) + n 23