T-Mobile: Lack of iPhone costing customers

Reporting its third quarter fiscal results, T-Mobile U.S. parent Deutsche Telekom at least partially blamed the company’s lack of the iPhone for its struggles to keep contract customers. The Wall Street Journal reports that it cost T-Mobile in the U.S. $87 to keep an existing subscriber, up from $58 the year-ago quarter, while it paid out an average of $134 to acquire a new customer, up from $116 a year earlier. Still, the company lost 60,000 contract customers during the period, which Deutsche Telekom CEO Rene Obermann blamed on the iPhone. “Consumers like T-Mobile but they also want to have the iPhone,” which the company has no chance of getting in the short term, he said. The company also lost iPhone exclusivity in its home market of Germany, but the company feels it has more compelling offerings than rivals, and seems unconcerned by the loss.