The iPhone will officially arrive at T-Mobile USA within three to four months, according to CEO John Legere. Legere made the comments to Reuters during the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, noting that the company's plans to drop phone subsidies would also come to fruition during that same time period.
T-Mobile announced in December that it would finally begin offering the iPhone to subscribers, after years of being the only major US carrier without the device. At the time, the company was vague about which Apple products it would carry; the iPhone is a given, but T-Mobile may follow in AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint's footsteps by offering a cellular version of the iPad as well.
Legere's comments at CES didn't address the iPad, however—instead, he stuck solely to the iPhone and subsidies as his main talking points.
"They're all, I would call them, in three to four months as opposed to six to nine months," Legere told Reuters.
In a separate comment, Legere also said that T-Mobile is already supporting 1.9 million iPhones on its network, and that it was seeing 100,000 new iPhone activations every month already.
As for the subsidies, Legere emphasized that he believes it might increase its market share by getting rid of discounted phones, simply offering lower monthly fees than the competition. He foresees subscriber numbers increasing by 5 percent or more, since T-Mobile won't force users into a two-year contract in exchange for the subsidy like AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint. "If the old industry structure chooses to ignore what we do, that's a potential," he said.
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