T-Mobile's US CEO to quit next year amid shrinking share
updated 12:55 pm EDT, Wed May 26, 2010
T-Mobile chief Dotson to exit in 2011
T-Mobile's US branch showed signs of upheaval today as its chief executive Robert Dotson said he would leave the company next year. He intends to resign as CEO in February 2011 and will stay on as a regular board of directors member until May. The move was billed by Dotson as long in coming and an opportunity for him to spend more time with family as well as to look into "entirely new and unique challenges."
Parent company Deutche Telekom's own CEO, Rene Olbermann, was surprised and said he "sincerely regret[ted]" Dotson leaving. T-Mobile Germany's former CEO Philipp Humm will come to the American division on July 1st this year in a designated role and has a reputation for turning around the ailing cell carrier at home as well as a stint at Amazon.
Although characterized as voluntary, the executive swap follows as T-Mobile has had little success expanding its foothold in the US. It lost 77,000 subscribers in its latest quarter and has rarely gained more than a few hundred thousand customers in the past several quarters, even with high-profile phones like the G1 and myTouch 3G. T-Mobile was the first to adopt Android in the US but has quickly been eclipsed by Verizon as Google's favorite. Its need to use an uncommon 3G frequency has also kept it away from desirable phones that would end up on AT&T, such as the iPhone.
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Oct 2004
t-mo
t-mo just had a mini success with the HTC HD2, a winmo phone of all things. Plus they have the Nokia Nuron - sure its not exciting and kind of primitive in many ways, but free turn-by-turn navigation and 3g unlimited data access for only $10 a month, makes it unique as a value smartphone. Soon they'll have the N8, bring Symbian into more u.s. households.
Sure none of that is going to turn them out of 4th place any time soon, thats for sure, but I'm impressed that they've managed to more or less tread water...when economies of scale favoring other companies...and market forces should be putting them under, its sometimes impressive to maintain your market share.