Released on = December 14, 2006, 10:43 am

Press Release Author = InfoCom GmbH

Industry = Telecommunications

Press Release Summary = Stuttgart, Germany - 15th Dec 2006 - The US market has seen
important changes over the past two years with the mergers of AT&T and SBC, Verizon
and MCI as well as Sprint and Nextel.

Press Release Body = December 15, 2006 -- Stuttgart, Germany - The US market has
seen important changes over the past two years with the mergers of AT&T and SBC,
Verizon and MCI as well as Sprint and Nextel. AT&T was the top US carrier in 2005,
having a 25% market share in terms of net revenues (see Fig. 1), followed by Verizon
with 19% and Sprint Nextel with 10%. AT&T's dominance in the US market was helped by
its merger with SBC, which adopted the AT&T name, as well as SBC's 60% ownership of
Cingular Wireless, which had the largest market share, at 26%, in terms of mobile
subscribers in 2005. SBC's merger with AT&T gave the new company increased dominance
in the fixed line and datacom market. Verizon also has a strong fixed line and
broadband market share but it is its mobile segment, Verizon Wireless, which has for
the most part helped Verizon reach the number two spot in terms of net revenues.
Verizon Wireless had about 25% mobile subscribers market share in 2005.

Fig. 2 shows a simulated version of 2005 revenues, highlighting the combined market
shares of AT&T-BellSouth and Verizon-MCI. The Verizon-MCI merger helped the company
expand thanks to MCI's international long distance networks and helped create the
Verizon Business segment targeted at SMEs and large corporate customers. If the
AT&T-BellSouth merger goes through, the company would have 30% and Verizon-MCI 21%
of a $315bn market, giving them in their home market important economies of scale,
which they could in turn leverage for international expansions. As a comparison, the
European market is worth around $370bn but the two largest players, Deutsche Telekom
and France Télécom, have respectively only 12.5% and 11.6% of the market.

Please visit http://www.infocom-de.com/pressarchives/press_151206.html to see the
graphs.
Title 1: Top-10 US telecom groups - all services in net revenues - 2005
Title 2: Top-10 US telecom groups - all services in net revenues - 2005 - with
simulated AT&T-BellSouth and Verizon-MCI merger

About InfoCom
InfoCom is a market research and consultancy company with almost 20 years experience
providing strategic analyses and planning assistance to stakeholders in the
telecommunications, IT and multimedia industries. InfoCom's independent and
fact-based analyses highlight trends and opportunities, supporting decision makers
to understand market dynamics in order to improve their competitive advantage.
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