Over the past few years, Deutsche Telekom has made a number of attempts to sell T-Mobile US, but ever since John Legere took over, it seems the German carrier giant has changed its mind, with their CEO Tim Hoettges today claiming that he’s “not in the mood” to sell the US carrier.
Back in September 2012, T-Mobile US appointed John Legere as their CEO and, ever since, the carrier has seen constant growth and even overtook Sprint to become the third largest carrier in the US largely thanks to Legere’s Uncarrier initiative, with the company now having nearly 10 million more customers than Sprint. The carrier has grown so much, in fact, that it is close to matching the revenue generated from Deutsche Telekom’s German business, with T-Mobile generating 2.156 billion euros, only slightly less than the 2.25 billion euros the DT generated from its German business in the third quarter, meaning that they’re no longer in any rush to sell the US’ third largest wireless provider. That said, Hoettges did say that once Trump becomes president they expect there will be more of a possibility for a sale.
T-Mobile has become such an important part of Deutsche Telekom that many analysts have suggested that the US carrier is their only chance of growth, due to the saturation of the German market, as well as their exit last year from the UK with the sale of EE which they jointly owned with France-based Orange. With T-Mobile adding 969,000 postpaid customers and a further 890,000 customers in the third and second quarters of this year respectively, the carrier’s lead over Sprint is only increasing and, within a couple of years, the company is sure to start closing in on AT&T. It’s currently unknown if the Germany-based company will eventually look into selling the US business again once Trump becomes president, but, with the constant growth of their US subsidiary, it appears that keeping the company right now can only lead to an increase in revenue and profit. In addition to this, with John Legere’s Uncarrier initiative providing constant growth, if Deutsche Telekom decided to take a long term bet on T-Mobile, they could eventually have their hands on the second or even the biggest carrier in the US market, something that is likely to be helped by Verizon’s and AT&T’s new focus on digital media and not on their core carrier business.