Sprint in talks with Japan's Softbank, may sell stake in company
Sprint has disclosed that they're in talks with Softbank, Japan’s third-largest mobile carrier, about Softbank potentially acquiring of a large stake in Sprint. In a statement this morning, Sprint announced that the talks primarily regard a “substantial investment” in Sprint by Softbank, and a potential transaction could change who controls Sprint. Such a move would give Softbank an instant national foothold in the United States, and help Sprint financially. They would not be the first internationl carrier to come to the U.S. either. Vodafone, the second-largest carrier in the world, owns a large stake in Verizon Wireless, and T-Mobile is famously owned by Deutsche Telekom.
Sprint has been the thrid-place carrier in the U.S. for years, and though a Softbank investment would not change that, at least in the short term, it might allow Sprint a bit of breathing room, as well as more resources to increase the deployment of their LTE network. What this means for a potential Sprint bid on MetroPCS is unknown.
Source: Sprint
Joseph Keller is a news reporter for iMore. He's also chilling out and having a sandwich.
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Wouldn't it be amazing if sprint got bought and took a complete 180 degree turn for the better....
oh if only if only.... i will be watching this story very closely
If Sprint can at least stay on track with Network Vision (their network modernization program) then they will do just that. I hope that a purchase by SoftBank would only mean even more improvements for Sprint's network.
Sprint has been the best carrier for years, so I'm really hoping they don't take a 180 degree turn!
BAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!!! Oh man!! Oh man!!! You shouldn't tell such funny jokes this early!!
What could possibly be the business case for a japanese carrier to want to try to break into the US teleco market?
I believe it's the biggest cellphone market right now. Money maybe.
Why, whenever we see an iphone on sprint it only has 2 bars? I get great signal 90% of where I go & I'm in Las Vegas. Bad PR stunt on the side of iMore all should be at 4 bars just to make them equal.
Pronounced "Sofutubanku" <in Japanese access> ^_^
ソフトバンク（Sofutobanku), and Sprint would be スプリント（Supurinto).
You'd think it would make more sense for KDDI to try to buy Sprint, as they're both CDMA. I guess KDDI wasn't interested.
Awesome more money that will be leaving this country. At least when At&t was trying to by T-Mobile USA, inc from Deutsche Telecom it would've kept future revenues in the USA.