T-Mobile has no plans to leave US
updated 06:45 pm EDT, Fri March 26, 2010
T-Mobile not merging or leaving US market
T-Mobile USA owner Deutsche Telekom AG has said in an interview that the US operations will not be sold or merge, but that the company is committed to growing the carrier, the WSJ reported this week. Late last year, an analyst group predicted that T-Mobile was likely to merge with Sprint, and become a rival to AT&T, the second-largest provider in the US.
"Why can't you have penetration rates of 500 percent or 1,000 percent?" the company's USA chief Rene Obermann said. "We aren't considering multi-billion dollar deals." He believes there are enough potential customers in the market to support four major carriers, but no more.
Obermann added that the US has potential for selling new voice and data plans to the same consumer who has more than one wireless device that requires them, as smartphones and portable tablets are on the rise.
T-Mobile USA is the fourth-largest carrier in the USA, behind Verizon, AT&T and Sprint. A merger with Sprint could put it in the lead if it were ever to complete, but their competing choices of GSM and CDMA networks would require a major overhaul that could be too expensive to implement.
