No Need for Consolidation in US Market - Deutsche Telekom CFO

­There is no need for further consolidation in the US mobile phone market, says Deutsche Telekom's Chief Financial Officer Timotheus Hoettges. Deutsche Telekom owns T-Mobile, and there have been rumours of a possible takeover bid for Sprint Nextel.

"There are four national players in the U.S. market for 300 million households, while in Europe, where we have 350 million households, there are 50-70 operators," Hoettges told Bloomberg News, after a conference in Frankfurt today. "We believe in our chances of being the challenger."

The company is currently focusing on building up its 3G network and admits that is has lost market share due to the delays in rolling out its upgraded network.

"There is no question that we lost customers because many of our customers couldn't get 3G.," Hoettges said. "We now have to make sure that we can capitalize on the network in the top-10 cities where we have invested."

The company has also not yet made a decision about its eventual evolution towards 3G networks. The option of a partnership with other companies or bidding on its own for additional radio spectrum have not been ruled out.

US WiMAX operator, Clearwire is known to need around US$2 billion by year-end to complete its own network expansion, and Deutsche Telekom has been cited as a possible source of funding in exchange for access.

On the web: Bloomberg News

Posted to the site on 13th October 2009