Apple's Beats brand in April unveiled the Powerbeats Pro, a redesigned wire-free version of its popular fitness-oriented Powerbeats earbuds.
Japanese Carrier SoftBank Close to Acquiring Sprint?
The Verge reports on an article from Japanese business newspaper Nikkei claiming that the country's third largest carrier, SoftBank, is close to acquiring U.S. carrier and iPhone partner Sprint Nextel. The report indicates that SoftBank is looking to acquire at least a two-thirds share of Sprint in a deal that would exceed ¥1.5 trillion ($19.2 billion).
The Wall Street Journal follows up with its own claims along the same lines, although it pegs the purchase price at over ¥1 trillion ($12.81 billion).
Sprint became the third of the four major U.S. carriers to offer the iPhone upon the release of the iPhone 4S in October 2011, with company executives moving to "bet the company" on the iPhone in committing to purchase more than 30 million iPhones worth $20 billion over the first four years of the partnership. The move has impacted Sprint's financials over the short-term, but the carrier believes that the long-term effects of having the iPhone will be positive.
The Wall Street Journal follows up with its own claims along the same lines, although it pegs the purchase price at over ¥1 trillion ($12.81 billion).
Sprint executives have said they want to participate in the industry's consolidation. The approach from Softbank comes as Sprint is making progress stitching together its various network technologies and stemming declines in its revenue and subscriber base following a 2005 merger with Nextel.The U.S. mobile carrier industry has been looking at significant consolidation in recent years, particularly at the top of the market as Verizon and AT&T have jockeyed for the top spot and Sprint and T-Mobile USA have sought to gain ground on the two leaders. Following the failed merger of AT&T and T-Mobile last year, T-Mobile just last week announced that it would merge with MetroPCS, the country's fifth-largest carrier, although Sprint was rumored to also be considering making a bid.
The deal would mark a massive gamble by Softbank, the country's third-largest carrier by subscribers, to expand its business outside of Japan. Softbank Chief Executive Masayoshi Son has made big bets in the past, including acquiring the Japanese arm of Vodafone Group in 2006. It paid for the deal through a leveraged buyout, which vaulted the company in the mobile-phone business.
Sprint became the third of the four major U.S. carriers to offer the iPhone upon the release of the iPhone 4S in October 2011, with company executives moving to "bet the company" on the iPhone in committing to purchase more than 30 million iPhones worth $20 billion over the first four years of the partnership. The move has impacted Sprint's financials over the short-term, but the carrier believes that the long-term effects of having the iPhone will be positive.
[ 55 comments ]
Top Rated Comments
(View all)
85 months ago
And thus continues the selling out of our nation to foreign countries.
Not happy to see this. Soon the rest of the world will own us, if not already.
Not happy to see this. Soon the rest of the world will own us, if not already.
85 months ago
だからスプリントは改善するかもしれない？？数年で、私はそのためにダウンしているだろう...
FYI Google Translate is awful for Japanese translation.
85 months ago
http://bit.ly/T8sbGl
Denied by Softbank.
85 months ago
And thus continues the selling out of our nation to foreign countries.
Not happy to see this. Soon the rest of the world will own us, if not already.
Yeah, because no American company has ever purchased their way into a foreign market...
Ever since the bomb, Japan and the US are so tied together that this sort of thing no longer really matters. Both countries are leading innovators with technology. It's like two people getting into a fight and then becoming best friends after...well, if you take the bomb part out of the story.
85 months ago
http://bit.ly/T8sbGl
Denied by Softbank.
They didn't deny a merger is being discussed they only said they haven't made an announcement that a merger is being discussed.
----------
And thus continues the selling out of our nation to foreign countries.
Not happy to see this. Soon the rest of the world will own us, if not already.
US companies own more of the world than the world's companies own of us.
85 months ago
I cashed in my Sprint stock today! big money :) can't take anymore chances with it.
85 months ago
I love how sprint attracts customers to their most unusable service with their "Unlimited Data" advertising. You'd think they'd have to be smarter than that... You don't want to advertise the worst aspect of your product. Between Sprint's foray into WiMAX and their foolish advertising campaign, it isn't hard to see why they're at where they're at right now: Poor leadership.
[ Read All Comments ]
Ousmane Bah, an 18-year-old from New York, is suing Apple for $1 billion for false arrest, reports Bloomberg.
According to Bah, Apple's in-store facial recognition software mistakenly...
The latest version of Apple's "Hey Siri" feature works hands-free without being plugged into power, and it can be found in several recently announced Apple mobile products, including the...
Apple today seeded the third beta of an upcoming macOS Mojave 10.14.5 update to developers for testing purposes, two weeks after launching the second beta and a month after the launch of macOS Mojave...
Apple today seeded the third beta of an upcoming watchOS 5.2.1 update to developers, two weeks after seeding the second beta and almost a month after the release of the watchOS 5.2 update, which...
Apple today seeded the third beta of an upcoming tvOS 12.3 update to developers, two weeks seeding the second beta and three weeks after releasing tvOS 12.2).
Designed for the fourth and...
While Apple has built out a significant network of data centers to support iCloud and other services, it still relies on other companies to help support those services. According to CNBC, Apple has a...
In a recent interview with TechRadar, Beats president Luke Wood discussed how the company has changed under Apple's leadership, and the upcoming Powerbeats Pro headphones.
The new...
Bowers & Wilkins today unveiled a new Formation Suite of high-end home audio products with support for Apple's wireless streaming protocol AirPlay 2.
The new line includes five...
