2017/06/05 T-Mobile USA Takes Aim at Verizon

John Legere continues to turn up the heat on Verizon by claiming that Big Red's network speeds are not as good as T-Mobile's own. The latest attacks follow an announcement of a promotion, GetOutoftheRed, by T-Mobile that sees the Un-Carrier offering to pay off Verizon customers iPhone or Google Pixel smartphones if they switch networks.

This is just the latest salvo from T-Mobile, which is relentless at identifying and then attacking weaknesses with its fellow carriers. While Verizon has often tried to hold the line in the face of T-Mobile promotions like lifting customer data caps, in the interests of maintaining profitability and network reliability, it eventually gets forced to fall in line as its peers fold in the face of T-Mobile's attacks.

While T-Mobile will continue to bang on about perceived issues at Verizon, eventually CEO Legere's attention will shift to another target - likely AT&T will once again find itself in the cross hairs, while Sprint may get a pass as talks of a tie-up between it and T-Mobile once again heat up. 

The USA smartphone market is incredibly competitive, especially as a mature market makes customer acquisition a zero-sum game. Interestingly, T-Mobile may have a chink in its armor that Verizon can exploit, given that while Verizon does not place a subsidy lock on its devices, T-Mobile does lock all of its devices. In fact, T-Mobile's subsidy lock is more difficult to lift than that of other operators, at least when it comes to using a third-party unlocking service.

T-Mobile will eventually turn its guns on another competitor. In the meantime, Verizon can take comfort in the fact that its customers are among the most loyal, making it difficult for T-Mobile to peel them away. Nevertheless it's indisputable that T-Mobile's efforts over the past few quarters have been extremely successful, as our quarterly smartphone shipments by operator research shows T-Mobile taking the lead in the most recent Q1'17 period.

Clients of Strategy Analytics' Emerging Device Strategies (EDS) service have access to the latest and most in-depth research and analysis, tracking the North American and global handset markets. EDS provides quarterly tracking, forecasting and deep analysis of the vendors and technologies powering handsets, smartphones and other emerging devices.