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 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 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.
Wednesday February 19, 2025 8:02 am PST by Joe Rossignol
Apple today introduced the iPhone 16e, its newest entry-level smartphone. The device succeeds the third-generation iPhone SE, which has now been discontinued.
The iPhone 16e features a larger 6.1-inch OLED display, up from a 4.7-inch LCD on the iPhone SE. The display has a notch for Face ID, and this means that Apple no longer sells any iPhones with a Touch ID fingerprint button, marking the ...
Tuesday February 18, 2025 12:02 pm PST by Joe Rossignol
Over the years, Apple has switched from an aluminum frame to a stainless steel frame to a titanium frame for its highest-end iPhones. And now, it has been rumored that Apple will go back to using aluminum for three out of four iPhone 17 models.
In an investor note with research firm GF Securities, obtained by MacRumors this week, Apple supply chain analyst Jeff Pu said the iPhone 17, iPhone...
Thursday February 20, 2025 5:06 am PST by Tim Hardwick
Now that Apple has announced its new more affordable iPhone 16e, our thoughts turn to what else we are expecting from the company this spring.
There are three product categories that we are definitely expecting to get upgraded before spring has ended. Keep reading to learn what they are. If we're lucky, Apple might make a surprise announcement about a completely new product category.
M4...
Wednesday February 19, 2025 11:38 am PST by Juli Clover
Following the launch of the iPhone 16e, Apple updated its iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia pages to give a narrower timeline on when the next updates are set to launch.
All three pages now state that new Apple Intelligence features and languages will launch in early April, an update from the more broader April timeframe that Apple provided before. The next major point updates will be iOS ...
Friday February 21, 2025 1:08 pm PST by Juli Clover
Apple finally released the first beta of iOS 18.4 to developers for testing purposes, and while the beta is lacking some of the Apple Intelligence features we were hoping for, there are some notable new additions.
Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos.
Priority Notifications - Apple Intelligence
There is a new Priority Notifications feature that can show you your most...
Friday February 21, 2025 11:06 am PST by Juli Clover
In iOS 18.4, there's a new Ambient Music option that can be added to Control Center. There are four different sound categories, including Sleep, Chill, Productivity, and Wellbeing.
Each category can be added to Control Center separately, and tapping one plays a random selection of sounds or music from that particular category.
You can't choose what's playing from Control Center, but if...
Friday February 21, 2025 8:01 am PST by Joe Rossignol
Apple has confirmed that its custom-designed C1 modem in the iPhone 16e has nothing to do with the device's lack of MagSafe support, according to Macworld.
Following the launch of the iPhone 16e, there was some speculation online about how MagSafe magnets might have interfered with the C1 modem's cellular connectivity performance, and this was considered to be a potential reason for the...
Thursday February 13, 2025 8:07 am PST by Joe Rossignol
In a social media post today, Apple CEO Tim Cook teased an upcoming "launch" of some kind scheduled for Wednesday, February 19.
"Get ready to meet the newest member of the family," he said, with an #AppleLaunch hashtag.
The post includes a short video with an animated Apple logo inside a circle.
Cook did not provide an exact time for the launch, or share any other specific details, so...
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.
