T-Mobile USA has announced that it has struck an agreement with Apple to begin supporting Apple products in 2013. Deutsche Telecom Rene Obermann made the announcement to analysts today.
The company also confirmed the announcement in a press release today:
In addition, T-Mobile USA has entered into an agreement with Apple to bring products to market together in 2013.
Deutsche Telecom also notes that this new agreement with Apple would affect the company’s cash flow:
The Group’s free cash flow is expected to decrease to around EUR 5 billion in 2013 (scheduled figure for 2012: around EUR 6 billion), primarily as a result of the increased capital expenditure and the systematic implementation of the Challenger strategy in the U.S. market, including the agreement with Apple. The Group’s free cash flow is expected to be around EUR 6 billion in 2015 (including MetroPCS).
It is currently unclear which products this deal will cover. Apple currently sells both the iPhone and the iPad on either Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint on the U.S., but it is unclear if T-Mobile USA will get both the iPhone and iPad, or only one of those products.
Late last month, Merrill Lynch analyst Scott Craig claimed that T-Mobile USA would announce an iPhone deal with Apple on either December 6th or 7th.
In the middle of last month, T-Mobile had alluded to the iPhone being too expensive to carry:
Make no mistake about it: We would love to carry the iPhone. However, we want the economies to be right for us, said T-Mobile COO Jim Alling, who, according to Fierce Mobile, spoke candidly during a discussion at the Morgan Stanley Twelfth-Annual Technology, Media, and Telecoms Conference in Barcelona, Spain.
Throughout the year, we have been reporting that T-Mobile had been lighting up iPhone-compatible 4G networks. Notably, T-Mobile used the Moscone West Center as a testbed for this network during Apple’s early-June Worldwide Developers Conference.
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