Apple's iPhone is finally coming to T-Mobile USA.
T-Mobile's parent company, Germany's Deutsche Telekom, announced Thursday that its U.S. subsidiary has struck an agreement with Apple to sell iProducts in 2013. In a statement issued online, Deutsche Telekom stopped short of specifically naming the iPhone or iPad. But during an investors conference in Germany on Thursday, T-Mobile USA CEO John Legere hoisted an iPhone and said the carrier will sell the wildly popular handset, according to the Los Angeles Times.
The move means the iPhone will be available through each of the top four U.S. carriers, which also include AT&T, Verizon and Sprint. Apple also sells the iPhone through a few smaller, regional carriers such as C-Spire. The move definitely helps T-Mobile.
"If we do see Apple products being sold through T-Mobile, I do think that would be a nice boost for their portfolio in 2013," said Hughes de la Vergne, a smartphone analyst with the Gartner research firm. "Right now, T-Mobile is the only national carrier that doesn't sell any Apple products. And with Android truly dominating their portfolio, it's limited consumer choice over there."
The pact between Apple and T-Mobile also will bring the iPhone up to retail par with Samsung's Galaxy S III and Galaxy Note II smartphones, which were previously the only handsets offered by each of the big four carriers.
Samsung is Apple's biggest rival in smartphone sales and the Galaxy lineup is the Korean company's answer to the iPhone. The competition between the two companies is one of the major reasons they're waging a patent war in courtrooms, each trying to get the other's phones and tablets removed from store shelves.
"I don't think you can say that Samsung selling their phones across all four carriers is the one thing that pushed Apple to work out a deal with T-Mobile," De la Vergne said. "But the expansion of the iPhone across major carriers and smaller carriers like C-Spire and Cricket and Virgin over the last couple years; when you're competing with Android for developer mindshare and Samsung has its devices sold in so many places, the competition between Apple and Android and Samsung is certainly an aspect of all this."
The deal also could help T-Mobile move from a lagging fourth-place carrier to a company vying for the third spot in the U.S., he said.
"T-Mobile has been in an uphill battle the last couple years," De la Vergne said. "AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon, they've all got a nice lead when it comes to selling the iPhone and having deployed 4G LTE networks. T-Mobile will still need to overcome that, but if they can get an iPhone on store shelves and a have an LTE network up and running, they'll be in a much better position to challenge Sprint for third place among U.S. carriers."
