We’d been wondering why US Cellular wasn’t among the new iPhone carriers ever since we heard tiny C-Spire Wireless will be carrying Apple’s latest handsets, and now we know why: US Cellular CEO Mary Dillon told investors that her company turned down the iPhone because Apple’s terms were “unacceptable from a risk and profitability standpoint.” We don’t know exactly what those terms were, but it’s probably safe to say they were a scaled-down version of Sprint’s “multibillion dollar gamble” that requires a certain number of iPhone to be purchased over the next four years — a deal that likely won’t generate any profits for Sprint until 2014.
US Cellular turned down iPhone because of ‘unacceptable’ terms
US Cellular CEO Mary Dillon told investors that her company turned down the iPhone because Apple’s terms were “unacceptable from a risk and profitability standpoint.”
US Cellular CEO Mary Dillon told investors that her company turned down the iPhone because Apple’s terms were “unacceptable from a risk and profitability standpoint.”
is editor-in-chief of The Verge, host of the Decoder podcast, and co-host of The Vergecast.
It’s not hard to see why US Cellular wouldn’t want to make a similar deal, but that doesn’t mean the door is totally closed — Dillon said she’s still willing to sell the iPhone in the future. We’ll see who cracks first: Apple in its desire to expand and stem Android growth at all costs, or US Cellular in its effort to slow down another quarter of subscriber losses.
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