T-Mobile USA Confirms Deal to Sell Apple's iPhone

Published on: 6th Dec 2012

­T-Mobile USA is to finally start selling Apple's iPhone and iPad products, from some time next year. The announcement was made an an investors day by T-Mobile's parent company, Deutsche Telekom.

Although the exact product range and timeline wasn't announced, it has been expected for sometime that Apple and T-Mobile would finally secure some sort of deal.

In addition to the Apple, announcement, Deutsche Telekom's CEO René Obermann said that T-Mobile USA is increasing its capital expenditure from an average of US$2.7 billion per year to US$4.7 billion in 2013 and around US$3 billion in each of the two subsequent years.

The focus is on building out the LTE network, which alone will result in capex of around US$4 billion.

He noted that T-Mobile USA is now in an extremely good position to benefit from growth, in particular of mobile Internet in the U.S., thanks to the mobile licenses it received from AT&T following the termination of the sale agreement, the spectrum from the Verizon deal, and the improved financial structure as a result of the long-term cell tower deal with Crown Castle.

In addition, T-Mobile USA benefits from the agreement with MetroPCS to combine their operations, a move designed to strengthen T-Mobile USA's standing in the fast-growing prepay segment. Approval is currently being sought from several U.S. authorities. Deutsche Telekom still expects the deal to close in the first half of 2013.

"Following on from the preceding steps such as the spectrum swap with Verizon, the towers deal with Crown Castle and the transaction with MetroPCS that we have announced, we have now added the final piece to the jigsaw to boost the competitiveness of T-Mobile USA sustainably," said René Obermann.

 

Tags: [t-mobile usa]  [apple iphone]  [USA]