Now that most people have a cell phone and once-heady growth in the industry is slowing, analysts say carriers are going to be looking at buying each other to increase their scale and to avoid competing too much on price. Consumers have been benefiting from relentless price-cutting on cell phone service in the past few years.
But consolidation doesnt come easy to the industry, and the government may not look kindly on the combinations that reduce competition.
U.K.s Sunday Daily Telegraph reported that T-Mobile USAs owner, Deutsche Telekom AG, has hired banking advisers to explore a bid for Sprint Nextel Corp.
Its not [...]

The acquisition announced Tuesday calls for Sprint to pay $5.50 in stock for each Virgin Mobile share. Sprint already owned 13.1 percent of Virgin Mobile, which uses Sprints network to offer service.
The offer comes at a 31 percent premium to Virgin Mobiles closing share price Monday of $4.21. In early trading Tuesday, the shares rose $1.05, or 25 percent, to $5.26.
Like other prepaid vendors, Virgin Mobile primarily targets customers who lack the credit or income to sign long-term contracts or simply want a bargain over contract-based plans. It has 5.2 million subscribers who pay an average of $20 per month. [...]

The third-largest U.S. phone company agreed to pay $5.50 a share to public shareholders of Virgin Mobile, whose biggest investor is U.K. billionaire Richard Bransons Virgin Group. Sprint gains 5.25 million users, expanding a prepaid unit that has added customers while its contract unit has lost them.
Sprint is taking a risk by increasing its exposure to the low prices and higher customer turnover of the prepaid market, said Chris King, an analyst at Stifel Nicolaus & Co. The company is still recovering from the Nextel acquisition, [...]

People began lining up outside Sprint stores in New York, Boston and Cherry Hill, New Jersey, at 5 p.m. yesterday. Sprint, which has trained staff for weeks and held promotional events with the likes of Jerry Seinfeld, may sell almost 200,000 phones this weekend, some analysts estimate.
Palm aims to win back customers for smart phones, a market it helped create, after devices from Apple and Research In Motion Ltd. prevailed with newer features and operating systems. Palm hired retired iPod chief Jon Rubinstein in 2007 to [...]

Sprint, which will carry the Pre exclusively at least through the end of the year, lost 1.25 million of its valuable contracted subscribers during the first three months of the year - even worse than the 1.1 million that fled to other wireless carriers in the fourth quarter.
Hesse said the Pre gives Sprint an opportunity to show off its competitive voice and data networks and service plans - things that could help the company retain subscribers and lure new ones. He said Sprint has “vastly” improved its customer service and network performance.
“We are a very, very different company than we [...]

Investors responded by sending shares of the nations third-largest wireless provider up sharply. Sprint shares gained 53 cents, or 11.4 percent, to $5.20 in afternoon trading after reaching as high as $5.48 earlier in the session.
The Overland Park, Kan.-based company lost $594 million, or 21 cents per share, during the three months ending March 31, versus a loss of $505 million, or 18 cents per share, a year ago.
Not including one-time charges, Sprint said it would have earned 3 cents per share, compared with the 4-cent loss analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters had predicted.
The company said it recorded a $327 [...]

Thats a change from recent years, when flashy new phones and data services hogged the spotlight. This year, the developments have been more appropriate for a recession: People who are least able to pay are getting cheaper service.
In traditional prepaid service, which generally has been marketed to people with iffy credit, customers buy minutes in advance, and often are charged a fee for each day they use the phone.
The big change this year has been the rise of prepaid plans with no limit on the minutes used.
In January, Sprint Nextel Corp. made a bold move to capture a larger share [...]

Even so, Sprint Nextels condition has been so poor that investors were able to seize on news that wasnt as bad as usual. Sprints adjusted loss beat Wall Street expectations, and the company predicted fewer customer losses in the coming year. That sent Sprint shares soaring 54 cents, or 20 percent, to end at $3.25.
During a conference call with analysts, Chief Executive Officer Dan Hesse said he still wasnt happy with his companys performance but said he believed Sprints efforts to rebuild the companys image were gaining traction.
“The improvements we have made with the customer experience are the foundation for [...]

Even so, Sprint Nextels condition has been so poor that investors were able to seize on news that wasnt as bad as usual. Sprints adjusted loss beat Wall Street expectations, and the company predicted fewer customer losses in the coming year. That sent Sprint shares soaring 50 cents, or 18 percent, to $3.21 in afternoon trading.
During a conference call with analysts, Chief Executive Officer Dan Hesse said he still wasnt happy with his companys performance but said he believed Sprints efforts to rebuild the companys image were gaining traction.
“The improvements we have made with the customer experience are the foundation [...]

On Tuesday, Citi Investment Research analyst Mark Mahaney offered an educated guess - that Amazon sold 500,000 Kindles last year. That is higher than his previous expectation of 380,000.
Mahaney bases his latest estimate in part on a regulatory filing from Sprint Nextel Corp., which is a key player since the Kindle downloads books wirelessly over Sprints network. The filing notes that 210,000 of “certain wholesale devices” were activated on Sprints network during the July-September period by “wholesale partners prior to selling the device to the end customer.”
Mahaney said in an interview that this is the first time Sprint has disclosed [...]