René Obermann, CEO of T-Mobile parent company Deutsche Telekom, announced today that T-Mobile USA has entered into an agreement with Apple to begin providing hardware from the iPhone manufacturer next year.
According to a tweet by PC Magazine writer Sascha Segan, Obermann announced the news in a rather vague manner, as the T-Mobile CEO didn’t specifically mention the iPhone or iPad being part of the agreement. Both devices are the most likely Apple products that would be offered as part of the agreement, however.
T-Mobile USA may be getting the iPhone. CEO Rene Obermann says Tmo to launch "Apple products in the US in 2013."
— saschasegan (@saschasegan) December 6, 2012
A press release issued by T-Mobile didn’t clarify the issue further, merely reiterating what Obermann said during his conference call earlier this morning. The portion of the press release confirming the deal is as follows:
The higher investment volume is to be used to roll out the broadband infrastructure in Germany and the United States in particular. In the mobile communications network, this will be done using the state-of-the-art technology LTE. Around EUR 6 billion is earmarked for rolling out the broadband infrastructure in the German fixed network with optical fiber and vectoring between 2013 and 2020. In addition, T-Mobile USA has entered into an agreement with Apple to bring products to market together in 2013.
If T-Mobile does begin offering the iPhone through contracts on its network, it will be the last of the four major U.S. wireless carriers to do so. Apple’s smartphone was originally exclusive to AT&T, although Verizon began offering the iPhone on Feb. 10, 2011, when that exclusivity contract ended. Sprint also reached an agreement with Apple later that year to begin offering the smartphone through contracts on its network.
No official statement has been released by either company clarifying which products will be offered through the deal. This story will be updated when clarification regarding T-Mobile and Apple’s agreement is received.
Source: Sascha Segan (Twitter), T-Mobile via Engadget
11 Comments - Add comment