It is probably a bit early to say with certainty, but a reasonable person might argue the U.S. mobile business is in flux, with market structure about to change to a Verizon “and all the rest” pattern. Even though the pattern in recent years has featured Verizon and AT&T clearly in the lead, while Sprint and T-Mobile US were losing share.
With recent weakness at AT&T in the core postpaid phone segment, T-Mobile U.S. gaining and Sprint yet to launch its expected assault, everything is lining up for a bruising market share battle where AT&T, T-Mobile U.S. and Sprint increasingly trade customers, while Verizon stands alone at the top of the market, in terms of share stability.
Third quarter 2013 reports are not complete, but AT&T added 363,000 net contract customers in the third quarter.
But of the total additions, 388,000 were for tablet connections, meaning the carrier suffered a net loss of at least 25,000 postpaid phone customers.
In its second quarter, T-Mobile U.S. added about 678,000 customers, gaining significant numbers of customers, where it had been losing accounts for four years.
Sprint’s third quarter will undoubtedly continue to show share losses, driven, as has been the case for several years, by Nextel customer defections. In fact, Sprint’s performance with its own branded customers has not been the problem: most of Sprint’s net losses have been caused by the Nextel customer base.
At some point, though, Sprint will launch a determined assault. The issue is where Sprint believes it should aim its attack.
In some ways, both Sprint and T-Mobile U.S. likely will have the chance to take customers more from AT&T than Verizon, if only because both Sprint and T-Mobile U.S. have strengths in the prepaid and wholesale parts of the market, where Verizon does not really wish to play, and AT&T recently has made new commitments in the prepaid part of the market.
Verizon is likely to continue with its “premium service, premium price” positioning, which is distinctly different from the positioning of the other three firms.
Sprint arguably will have a chance to attack with a “more value” approach, based both on its spectrum holdings, the most substantial in the U.S. market, as well as Softbank’s content assets.
Both Verizon and AT&T will likely continue to have advantages in coverage, though. But all four carriers will have sufficient assets in those markets where most potential customers normally require U.S. coverage.
T-Mobile U.S. already is starting to leverage global coverage provided by the rest of the T-Mobile assets worldwide.
Still, it now appears that the AT&T customer base is “softer” in terms of its customer loyalty. That increasingly will lead to a “Verizon and the rest” market dynamic.
Edited by
Stefania Viscusi 
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