T-Mobile USA CEO Robert Dotson is stepping down next February. He will be replaced by Philipp Humm, who is currently the Chief Regional Officer of T-Mobile’s European arm. T-Mobile is quick to point out that Humm was critically important in setting up the merger between Orange UK and T-Mobile UK.
Anyway, back to Dotson, why is he leaving?
“It has long been my intent to step away from the business at this stage in my life in order to devote more time to family and to take on entirely new and unique challenges. That change can only be made possible if a suitable successor is in place. Over the next year, it will be my relentless focus and responsibility to work closely with Philipp to ensure marketplace success, and to enable a seamless leadership transition.”
As much as wanting to spend more time with the wife and kids sounds like a good excuse, when corporations throw out that type of babble there is usually something happening behind closed doors that we’re not aware of. Is he being moved out of the way so that Humm can do in the USA what he did in the UK and find someone to merge with? Who knows. The only operator in my mind who would want to join with T-Mobile is Sprint, and they have a completely different network technology. AT&T doesn’t need T-Mobile, and Verizon most certainly doesn’t either.
T-Mobile recently introduced new prepaid plans in order to earn more customers, with the most attractive being unlimited SMS for only $15/month. Voice and data sold separately. During their Q1 2010 financial results earning call they reported losing 77,000 customers, but at the same time increasing their profits, so … something must be going right.
Right?