By now, just about anyone who hasn't been hiding under the proverbial rock for the last three days knows that AT&T is planning on purchasing T-Mobile USA for $39 billion, pending regulatory approval. What you may not know is that a lot of what led to the sale of T-Mobile to AT&T was nothing less than Apple's iPhone.
T-Mobile USA is the American arm of Deutsche Telekom, the large German-based telecommunications company headquartered in Bonn. According to an article on the New York Times DealBook page yesterday, the iPhone may be one of the main reasons that Deutsche Telekom agreed to make the sale of their US properties to AT&T.
Until the introduction of the iPhone in 2007 on the AT&T network, T-Mobile USA was a solid performing business unit in Deutsche Telekom's worldwide holdings. After the iPhone came out, however, T-Mobile USA began losing lucrative contract customers to AT&T. The article notes that in 2010 alone, T-Mobile USA lost 390,000 customers to AT&T and Verizon, both of which now sell the iPhone.
Theo Kitz, a market analyst at the Merck Finck private bank in Munich, noted that "Without being able to sell the iPhone, T-Mobile was in an unsustainable position and T-Mobile USA became a problem child." We reported in late 2010 that Deutsche Telekom CEO Rene Obermann had blamed T-Mobile USA's lack of the iPhone for their fourth-place spot in the American mobile carrier race.
It is comforting to know, however, that all of those T-Mobile USA customers who will be moving to AT&T will have the opportunity to move to an AT&T iPhone when the purchase is complete.
How the iPhone led to T-Mobile USA's sale to AT&T originally appeared on TUAW on Tue, 22 Mar 2011 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Source: http://www.tuaw.com/2011/03/22/how-the-iphone-led-to-t-mobile-usas-sale-to-atandt/
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