SK Telecom In Talks To Purchase Sprint Nextel

A statement released by a top executive of SK Telecom confirmed recent speculation that they are going to attempt to acquire the one of the largest mobile phone providers in the US.

The No. 1 mobile provider in Korea is currently in negotiations with Sprint Nextel in order to gain a foothold in the US Market. SK Telecom already has more that half of the 40 million mobile phone users in Korea, and purchased a considerable stake in China's No. 2 mobile phone provider. They also expect to have over 3 million users in Vietnam by the end of the year. So far, the only region that they aren't faring well in is the United States.

I wouldn't say that they're doing poorly over here, as they partnered with Earthlink last year to launch the Helio service. Helio really seems to be doing quite well for itself, especially since the launch of the Ocean. Their numbers currently are in the neighborhood of 100,000 subscribers. It will be an interesting turn of events if they were to acquire Sprint, since Helio actually runs off of the Sprint network.

SK Telecom Pushing to Acquire Sprint Nextel [via telecomskorea]