“T-Mobile USA said it lost more than a half million of the most lucrative customers in the first quarter, casting doubt on whether the company can regain momentum after regulators blocked its sale to AT&T Inc.,” Greg Bensinger and Shara Tibken report for The Wall Street Journal.
“The 15th straight quarter of contract customer losses puts the carrier further behind AT&T T +0.98% and Verizon Wireless in the race to lock users into two-year commitments,” Bensinger and Tibken report. “T-Mobile, the fourth-biggest U.S. carrier, watched its subscriber rolls shrink after putting its strategic plans on hold last year while awaiting government approval of the $39 billion buyout offer by AT&T. T-Mobile is the largest remaining carrier without the Apple Inc. iPhone, another competitive advantage that has hurt its ability retain users.”
Bensinger and Tibken report, “T-Mobile said it lost 510,000 branded contract customers in the first quarter, an improvement from the 706,000 lost in the year-earlier period, though still behind its biggest rivals… ”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Revolutionary.
This plays right into Apple’s hands if the carriers really are thinking they might want to live without the iPhone by reducing subsidies and making Apple walk away. It wouldn’t take long for them to be asking Apple to come back at even better subsidies.
So, now I understand why ATT was so blasé about having to pay T-mobile something like $4B when their merger failed. They knew that without the merger T-mobile was going to fail and they could pick it up for a song — and get their $4B back.
Nobody’s going to buy a $500 phone ! I believe someone said in 2007 .hmmmmmm I think he and every other doubter has been proven wrong .boom boom boom !!!!!!
They lost me when my contract was up. My wife and kids will follow to the iPhone in November.
Hehehehehe…the meat in the Android sandwich. How’s them Androids doing for ya T-Mobile? This is proof positive that the Android mythical market share numbers are pulled from Andy Rubin’s ass. Yeah, no one’s buying ’em Droids.
BLN almost made it to the end of a post without reverting to the level of a grade 8 kid trying to impress his friends with his ‘big boy’ words. Get a thesaurus and learn some new words.
So much for Government intervention in private business.
I guess they didn’t want T-mobile to succeed.
What the hell are you talking about? T-Mo slit their own wrists when it turned up its nose at the iPhone repeatedly for the last 5 years. Government intervention has NOTHING to do with its loss of market share. On the contrary, the US insisting on another independent player preserves the only competitive force keeping AT&T and Verizon data contracts under $100/month. … of course, many would pay that anyway just to have an Apple sticker on the side of your gadget, wouldn’t they?
My youngest son and his girlfriend have been on his Mother’s T-Mobile family plan for several years. They were all bummed when ATT didn’t buy it because they figured they might finally get the iPhone.
He was up for a new phone so I put him on my plan and gave him an iPhone 4S for his birthday. Smiles ensued….
It’s a darn good thing that merger never happened and stifled the competition, thus allowing T-Mobile to thrive.
Why doesn’t T-Mobile have the iPhone? There is something unusual there. Is T-M not willing to agree to the terms?
The Germans have been playing apple. Now they get their comeuppance. Tmobile will not survive. They will be kaput within a year.
T-Mobile’s 3G service operates on a frequence not supported by the current iPhone radio.
Also, T-Mobile in Europe has the iPhone. If T-Mobile survives long enough to build out LTE, they too will get the phone. Since T and VZ will soon become more of a replacement/upgrade market, Apple could use the T-Mobile customers to keep a semblance of growth.
I read a day or two ago that T-M was upgrading equipment to work on the AT&T frequency they received in the failed takeover bid. That could just be BS to keep what customers they have left.
T-Mobile and AT&T (Cellular One/Cingular/SBC) were the GSM mavericks here. Seems like a long time ago…. T-Mobile’s new motorcycle ads are pretty uselessly flashy (aka typical) android patter. They did much better when their spokesmodel was in a dress. 😉
I officially unlocked an iPhone and got service from T Mobile (USA) a month ago .