Verizon Communications Inc. is looking to buy back US Cellular Corp.’s stake in its Los Angeles business, but only if the companies can agree on a reasonable price, Sampath said in an interview with Bloomberg on Monday. The chief of Verizon’s consumer division has long been eager to buy it back, but he declined to say what Verizon would view as a fair price.
The Wall Street Journal reported last week that Verizon and T-Mobile USA Inc. were in talks to buy portions of U.S. Cellular, a carrier with more than 4 million wireless subscribers in 21 states. Over the past few years, rivals AT&T Inc. and T-Mobile have taken market share, as Verizon’s has slid. From 2021 to 2023, Verizon’s portion of the US retail wireless market dropped to 35.2% from 36.5%, according to data gathered by Bloomberg.
In an effort to restore growth, Sampath has hiked prices and offered add-on perks such as bundled Netflix and Max streaming plans. However, customer losses have eased but not ended completely – the carrier reported shedding 158,000 retail mobile wireless subscribers in the first quarter of this year alone.
