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He reiterated in an interview with a handful of
reporters his stance that it would be good for U.S. consumers if
his Sprint Corp, the No.3 U.S. mobile provider which SoftBank
acquired last year, could become bigger and compete more
effectively with the two largest carriers.
"We can make it more effective by getting bigger scale," he said
at Tuesday's interview, conducted jointly with former U.S.
Secretary of State Colin Powell who is attending SoftBank-sponsored
events in Tokyo. "Us becoming a more credible competitor in
scale is something good for American consumers and citizens."
SoftBank, which aims to become the world's largest mobile
Internet company, has been eager to combine Sprint with No.4
T-Mobile US, arguing that together they would give dominant
players AT&T Inc and Verizon more of a run for their money.
Sprint has agreed to pay about $40 per share for T-Mobile US,
giving it a valuation of more than $32 billion, a person
familiar with the matter has said, although details such as
financing and a termination fee are still under negotiation.
U.S. authorities have expressed a strong reluctance to reducing
the number of main wireless providers to three from four,
however, and any deal is expected to face high regulatory
hurdles.
Son has responded with a lobbying campaign in the U.S. arguing
that three strong mobile carriers would offer better service,
lower costs and more vibrant competition than the current
structure of two dominant players and two smaller ones.
Asked whether resistance at the beginning of the year had
changed, Son said: "I'm not in the position to make the comment
on the other end, but, you know, the last few months, there's
new movement."
"I hope that the people will have more discussions on many
different angles."
(Reporting by Teppei Kasai and Yoshiyasu Shida; Editing by
Edmund Klamann and Chris Gallagher)
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