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Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
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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).

softbank_logo-500x83.jpg
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 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.
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.

sprint_logo.jpg
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.

Article Link: Japanese Carrier SoftBank Close to Acquiring Sprint?
 

maflynn

macrumors Haswell
May 3, 2009
73,415
43,304
Looks interesting and may give sprint a bit more money to compete with ATT and VZW.
 

Cathode

macrumors regular
Aug 5, 2008
164
5
Flagstaff, AZ
I signed up for Softbank about a month ago. Hearing this is really interesting. When I'm ready to head back to the states in a year or two, it would be nice to be able to use my iPhone 5 with Sprint.

Japanese companies don't unlock the iPhone here. But if its part of the same company...
 

mistertomlinson

macrumors 6502
Dec 22, 2007
333
19
Hopefully, SoftBank brings some of that Asian carrier magic over here so we can get some Asian-quality network!
 

Snowshiro

macrumors 6502
Jan 12, 2008
387
6
Hopefully, SoftBank brings some of that Asian carrier magic over here so we can get some Asian-quality network!

Softbank currently has the worst network of the 3 main carriers, although to be fair this is largely due to historical factors and a result of the Vodafone network (which itself was formerly the J-Phone network) that they acquired. They've certainly announced ambitious plans, and with their plan to buy eAccess here in Japan, they'll potentially move to be neck and neck with AU for the number 2 slot.

But on the whole, the mobile network isn't actually that fantastic in Japan. It's reasonably decent, but not a great deal better than a lot of developed countries. You're probably confusing it with broadband, which is considerably better here than most other places.

Softbank. Ugh. Worst customer service in all of Japan.

Nah, that's emobile. They make Sb look like saints.
 

greenteapanda

macrumors newbie
Apr 9, 2006
11
1
Hopefully, SoftBank brings some of that Asian carrier magic over here so we can get some Asian-quality network!

Actually, Softbank's network is at least as bad as AT&T's in the USA. They don't have enough spectrum to properly roll out LTE, which is one of the reasons why they bought Emobile. However, that spectrum is not compatible with phones people want, so it isn't really going to fix the situation in the near term.

Even in Tokyo, there are many places I get 0 signal on Softbank, whereas Docomo and AU both work in such places. I also don't have problems with my AU or Docomo phones randomly dropping calls in the middle of a conversation like Softbank does for many people.

They have also been caught out by net users secretly changing contract terms for their LTE plans several times recently.

Softbank is usually the cheapest of the three major mobile networks in Japan - like Sprint in the US. You get what you pay for.
 

derbladerunner

macrumors 6502
Sep 15, 2005
322
78

No denial, they just state:

We have not announced anything. We do not comment on speculation.

It's past midnight in Japan. Talks are ongoing and have been for some time, this is a complex deal. But Softbank and Sprint/Clearwire are close, just number crunching details now. We should hear more in the next few weeks.

Possibly sooner because of the leaks...
 

zorinlynx

macrumors G3
May 31, 2007
8,142
17,466
Florida, USA
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.
 

mistertomlinson

macrumors 6502
Dec 22, 2007
333
19
Softbank currently has the worst network of the 3 main carriers, although to be fair this is largely due to historical factors and a result of the Vodafone network (which itself was formerly the J-Phone network) that they acquired. They've certainly announced ambitious plans, and with their plan to buy eAccess here in Japan, they'll potentially move to be neck and neck with AU for the number 2 slot.

But on the whole, the mobile network isn't actually that fantastic in Japan. It's reasonably decent, but not a great deal better than a lot of developed countries. You're probably confusing it with broadband, which is considerably better here than most other places.



Nah, that's emobile. They make Sb look like saints.

Weeeeell, shet!
 

foodog

macrumors 6502a
Sep 6, 2006
911
43
Atlanta, GA

They didn't deny a merger is being discussed they only said they haven't made an announcement that a merger is being discussed.

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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.
 
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