According to a report on FierceWireless (link below), Boost Mobile stores are reporting shortages of phone inventory.
As part of the government’s conditional approval of the T-Mobile/Sprint merger, Dish is supposed to buy Boost for $1.4 billion. It was widely expected to close by June 1, but technically, it has 90 days since the April 1 filing of the consent decree, so it’s now expected to close July 1.
“Handset inventory at Boost is constrained,” said Jeff Moore, principal at Wave7 Research, which conducts regular channel checks of the prepaid market. The lag in handset supply is not blamed on the COVID-19 pandemic.
The article asks:
The reason for the issue constrained inventory? T-Mobile isn’t likely to order more phones for Boost, a business that it isn’t going to have much longer if it abides by the terms of the government’s merger approval. A lot of prepaid handsets are subsidized and Moore said T-Mobile would take a hit by ordering them and then selling them at a subsidized rate in the near term without later getting revenues from the service plans customers pay in the months ahead.
Recon Analytics founder Roger Entner suggested a similar theory. “Usually it doesn’t help subscriber figures when you have an asset in limbo,” he said. If Boost loses customers, that could be used as a bargaining chip for a lower purchase price.
Read the entire article here
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