T-Mobile USA - the fourth largest telecom carrier in the U.S. -
recently appointed John Legere as Chief Executive Officer (CEO),
effective this month.
John Legere will succeed the interim CEO Jim Alling, who will
return back to his existing role of Chief Operating Officer
(COO).
T-Mobile's quest for CEO began from June onwards when the former
CEO Philipp Humm resigned and became the CEO of
Vodafone Group PLC
'.s (
VOD
) Northern and Central European division.
John Legere is a former CEO of Global Crossing - a worldwide
Internet services provider and has worked for 32 years in the
telecommunications and technology sectors. 54-year old Legere had
an excellent track record of converting Global Crossing into
world's first integrated global IP-based network service provider.
Prior to this, Mr. Legere held important positions at
AT&T
(
T
) and
Dell Inc.
(
DELL
).
At present, T-Mobile is facing huge pressure from its top three
rivals,
Verizon Communication Inc.
(
VZ
), AT&T and
Sprint Nextel
Corp.
(
S
) as the company lacks sufficient spectrum depth to fully deploy 4G
LTE technology across its footprints. Moreover, lack of cash
coupled with no iPhones in its smartphone portfolio has severely
affected its subscriber growth.
Following T-Mobile's failure to be acquired by AT&T, the
company was forced to invest nearly $4 billion in a bid to upgrade
its network (nearly 37,000 cell sites), which will aid T-Mobile USA
to combat the prevailing stiff competition in the telecom
sector.
Change in management, coupled with huge investment in its LTE
technology will act as tailwinds for T-Mobile going forward.
Moreover, swapping of spectrum with Verizon and spectrum sharing
arrangement with
Leap Wireless International Inc.
(
LEAP
) will continue to expand the network capability of T-Mobile USA
going forward.
We maintain our long-term Neutral recommendation for AT&T
Inc., Verizon Communication Inc. and Sprint Nextel. Currently,
these stocks have a Zacks #3 Rank, which holds a short-term Hold
rating .
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