T-Mobile‘s Chief Executive Officer John Legere said that the third largest wireless carrier in the United States is capable of starting a new trend of major mergers in the country’s telecommunications industry. While speaking to analysts and journalists during the company’s Q1 2017 earnings call earlier this week, Legere stated that the Bellevue, Wahington-based company will soon be ready to listen to offers from all parts of the industry, implying that T-Mobile is willing to consider both mergers and acquisitions with its direct competitors and potentially compatible conglomerates, a sentiment that was already expressed by the company in recent months.
The federal year-long spectrum auction ban on merger talks officially expired yesterday, and the entire telecommunications industry is now once again free to discuss consolidations. Following years of positive performance on T-Mobile’s part, the third largest mobile service provider in the country is seen as a top acquisition target by numerous industry analysts, a title that Legere is seemingly more than happy to accept. The Bellevue-based firm was already in talks with Sprint’s parent company SoftBank about a potential merger with the Kansas wireless carrier several years back, but that consolidation was effectively blocked by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and several other government agencies under the former Obama administration. However, with the arrival of the new Trump administration, Washington is now seemingly much more open towards mergers and acquisitions in the telecommunications industry which is something that many major players are reportedly looking to take advantage of in the near future.
Even if T-Mobile ends up merging with another company, Sprint isn’t the only option on the table seeing how SoftBank has recently been sending mixed signals regarding its future plans for the Overland Park-based mobile service provider that might even end up being sold to a cable company instead of trying to merge with the firm that Legere is currently heading. Regardless of what happens in the U.S. wireless segment in the coming months, one thing is seemingly sure – some major changes of the telecommunications landscape in the country are on the horizon, and T-Mobile will likely be at the forefront of those consolidations.