Mobile Leadership Strategies

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has approved the proposed T-Mobile acquisition of MetroPCS. The deal is still awaiting approval from the Federal Communications Commission, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States and MetroPCS shareholders.

A final decision on the merger could happen as soon as April 12, which is when the final three groups are scheduled to meet according to PC Mag. However, employees at T-Mobile’s headquarters are anticipating a “significant round of layoffs” before the merger is finalized. It’s expected that more than 100 people will be laid off in marketing and other groups. T-Mobile has reduced its numbers by 4,200 in 2012, mostly cutting jobs in call centers and in other parts of the company besides the headquarters.

Yankee Group Senior Analyst Rich Karpinski comments

“Passing the DOJ approval (or rather, silent assent) is a good first step, but T-Mobile certainly must be holding its breath in light of its last failed merger (with AT&T, with whom it is now quite amusingly feuding). The reported layoffs, coming well ahead of the deal approval let alone integration with MetroPCS, should probably be more considered as business as usual than a pure result of the would-be merger. And for T-Mobile, business as usual these days mean executing an ‘uncarrier’ strategy that involves much larger doses of prepaid contracts and value pricing—’value bit mover‘ tactics that will by any measure will shrink top-line revenue and force T-Mobile to run its operations closer to the bone...hence this week’s expected layoffs.”