Time for Verizon to buy Sprint?
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NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- With AT&T dealing for prized asset T-Mobile, Sprint's options may be down to two: buy everything smaller than it or get bought by Verizon.
Sprint (S, Fortune 500) will be a distant third in the U.S. wireless industry if the AT&T/T-Mobile merger goes through. The carrier would control just 16% of the market, while AT&T (T, Fortune 500) and Verizon (VZ, Fortune 500) would own more than 70% of it.
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"I do have concerns that it would stifle innovation and that too much power would be in the hands of two [companies]," Sprint CEO Dan Hesse said Tuesday at a panel discussion at the CTIA Wireless Conference in O
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1. Sprint has rapidly gained top honors in the area of network and customer service. Since Sprint is still cheaper than either at&t or Verizon, this makes their service increasingly more attractive to a buying public who is searching for quality at a lower price.
2. Although Sprint is now behind the 8 ball in terms of 4G, the other two guys data caps make what they offer all but useless to the average family. Most families in America operate on very tight budgets and cannot afford the ridiculous cost associate with 4G data plans from the other guys (in a world where TMO no longer exists).
3. With 70% of all wireless phone users utilizing...
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I really am no longer concerned about the future of Sprint. I feel that they are on the right track now and still have many possible merger options besides Verizon on the table (US Cellular, Metro PCS, Cricket, etc.). If Sprint and US Cellular merged in the near future, this would vastly increase Sprint's native rural footprint without the need to hook up with Verizon. I...
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Dan Hesse sure seems concerned. Concerned enough to spend a whopping amount of precious cashflow on (a) lobbying multiple federal agencies, and (b) bringing their own lawsuit against the ATT+T-Mo merger. Hesse also risked what could have been a major PR backfire if Sprint had been perceived as the industry crybaby. You might not be concerned, but Hesse & his board certainly are.
The sheer economics of the Big Two (ATT & VZ) alone could keep Sprint in such a profit & cashflow bind that Sprint will never achieve critical mass. Simply introducing the iPhone to Sprint's CDMA network will begin burning the candle at both ends and in the middle: (1) Sprint will have to heavily...
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You guys have been pronouncing Sprint dead for the last few years, yet they seem to chug right along. I will echo what another poster said that he/she predicted Sprint will be here this time next year. I'll go a little farther and say the year after as well.
What I have said is that Sprint is so good at shooting itself in the foot and failing miserably at executing its "initiatives", that it will always be an also-ran, and possibly eventually absorbed by Verizon.
Personally, I would hate to lose Sprint, but that's not because I like Sprint. I actually dislike Sprint, because it is a company of bumbling idiots, continuously performing poorly and blowing every positive potential that comes their way. The only reason I would hate to lose Sprint is that I dislike ATT & VZ even more than I dislike Sprint ;-)
The one and only thing Sprint has going for it any more is their plan pricing, which ...
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Sprint also has there decent coverage and best in class Smarphone line up which is more then enough for them to compete against att or verizon. 😎
DiamondPro said:
Couldnt be worse then the bumbling idiots over at verizon ripping people off.
Sprint also has there decent coverage and best in class Smarphone line up which is more then enough for them to compete against att or verizon. 😎
Hmmmmm...then how do you explain the fact that Verizon and ATT in Q2 of this year added new customers at a rate 10X Sprint's net adds to CDMA (that's pure Sprint CDMA post-paid subscribers, and ignoring everything related to Nextel). In Q2 Sprint CDMA postpaid added 226,000 net subscribers, while in the same period Verizon added 2,200,000 new post-paid subscribers.
If Sprint's handset lineup and CDMA network coverage are equal to or better than Verizon's, what is...
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vercetti said:
most of it is because the numbers included churn for Nextel in the numbers
Wrong. The 226,000 net CDMA adds for Sprint are completely independent of the losses on the iDEN side. I specifically ignored the Nextel & Boost iDEN losses, and stated only the NET ADDS to Sprint CDMA.
"Please turn to Slide 6, if you will. Perhaps, the best indicator of brand strength is subscriber performance. Driven by improvements in churn, we achieved $1.1 million net adds in the second quarter, an improvement of 1 million from last year's second quarter, and this was our third consecutive quarter with over $1 million total net new subscribers. The Sprint brand was net add positive for the seventh consecutive quarter, and net port positive for the fifth straight quarter."
Unless you and Hesse just really like the $ symbol.
It can't be stated any more clearly than this, as quoted directly from Sprint's own press release: "The CDMA network added approximately 226,000 net postpaid customers during the quarter"
Again, in the same period, Verizon added a NET 2,200,000 postpaid customers, a ratio of 10:1.
The numbers speak for themselv...
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I'll agree to that statement, no argument there. In fact, one of the things I'm enjoying about Nextel (before they shut it down) is that there are so few subs on iDEN now, everything is working great for me. I'd RATHER be on a less-popular network, even though coverage is not as good.
Apple, Google, Disney, Walmart, McDonalds, Coke, GE, etc. are all companies that directly disagree with that statement.
DiamondPro said:
Verizon is not going to buy Sprint anytime soon. Just because tmobile is being bought out doesn't mean Sprint will. Fail post to say the least. Verizon has already clearly stated they have no interest in buying Sprint. 😎
Of course Verizon says they have no interest in Sprint. It is in Verizon's best interest to state publicly that they have no interest in Sprint, because that would just boost Sprint's stock price, which would make Sprint more expensive for them to eventually buy.
Verizon has time on its side. If the ATT/T-Mo deal falls flat, then Verizon doesn't have to do anything, just stay the course as they are doing now. ATT spends a ton of money and corporate energy pursuing T-Mo...
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