A report from The Wall Street Journal, indicates that Sprint will make a bid to buy T-Mobile in 2014. The news comes just months after SoftBank Corp. bought out Sprint, and T-Mobile merged with MetroPCS. The bid could come in the first half of 2014, and could pay more than $20 billion for its smaller competitor. This could mean the big four would become the big three, and with everything T-Mobile has changed over the past year this could have a huge effect.
T-Mobile first introduced the upgrade plans which let consumers pay for their phones instead of paying a subsidy, this also meant shorter upgrade intervals. T-Mobile also stopped contracts, with many other carriers pushing pre-paid too. The deal though would likely encounter a lot of government regulations and red tape that could delay or stop the deal. If Sprint would purchase T-Mobile prices could increase, the carriers could end their early upgrade plans (Next programs), and consumers would be left out to suffer.
Over two years ago AT&T attempted to purchase T-Mobile, but antitrust regulators delayed the deal. Then the FCC jumped into the play and then AT&T ditched the idea over purchasing T-Mobile. If Sprint were to buy T-Mobile it would have 53 million subscribers, far behind Verizon or AT&T. This could be a great thing for Sprint to get approval from the government, but Sprint should gear up for a uphill battle.
Sprint investors are looking positive upon this rumor with stock prices up 10 percent in after hours on the news, at $9.22 per share. Shares of T-Mobile U.S. are down 1.52 percent to $27. We’ve reached out to Sprint for comments but they’ve yet to reply. Stay tuned for more details, and leave a comment to tell us what you think about this possible buyout.
Thank you for the information Leon and lets wait and see how the deal will turn out. I hope this will not affect the competitiveness in the mobile industry for example the issue of monopoly can mean high rates for mobile services. Thank you
I have some mixed feelings about this merger, because T-Mobile has done so much recently they have pushed other companies to compete. If T-Mobile is removed this could mean no more competion and just keep the same old crappy ways.
If is true will be a big thing is spring buy T- mobile