One, two, Kalamazoo… T-Mobile’s going to carry the iPhone too.
Finally, after 6 iterations, the last of the major four carriers in the US, will finally start carrying the iPhone. T-Mobile now has the last piece needed in its arsenal to competitively compete against Verizon, AT&T and Sprint. T-Mobile, who has seen a mass exodus of customers over the past year, mostly due to the iPhone being available on other carriers, despite the fact they offer great plans at affordable prices and truly unlimited data.. But with the iPhone now being offered, Deutsche Telekom’s (the parent company of T-Mobile) CEO René Obermann believes that they can finally stand on equal footing with their competitors.
“We have now added the final piece to the jigsaw to boost the competitiveness of T-Mobile USA sustainably,” Deutsche Telekom Chairman René Obermann said.
“We worked very, very hard for a deal that made sense,” said New T-Mobile USA CEO John Legere, who added the deal would boost cash flow and earnings in 2014.
While no details were given, as to how much T-Mobile had to pay to receive the iPhone, they did say that because of the detail, its cash flow would be lower in 2013, but that it should start to pay off in 2014. Sprint, who didn’t add the iPhone until the iPhone 4S was released last year, had to pay Apple $15 billion over 5 years. Whether T-Mobile had a similar deal may remain mystery, at least for now.
One topic this announcement didn’t touched upon, is whether or not T-Mobile will continue to offer their “truly” unlimited plans once the iPhone and their LTE network become available. Still, this should make millions of T-Mo customers very happy, but could also affect the carrier’s Android sales, at least at first.
Source: Wall Street Journal