Cellular Telephone Service Market The United States has four major firms that provide cellular telephone service; AT&T Mobility, Verizon Wireless, T-Mobile, and Sprint Nextel. Combined together, these companies control 89 percent of the entire cellular telephone service market. Each of these firms stem from the ownership of a parent company which means they have developed from businesses with an already established abundance of assets and expertise. This is what has enabled these companies to succeed in creating a market that is extremely profitable with an optimistic future. AT&T was previously known as Cingular Wireless LLC which grew out of a conglomeration of more than 100 companies. AT&T Mobility is a wholly owned subsidiary of AT&T Incorporated, which provides wireless services to over 109 million subscribers in the United States, and is recognized as the second largest provider. The profitability of AT&T Mobility has shown consistent improvement throughout its history. Being that it is a wholly owned subsidiary of a larger company, AT&T has and always will have the means to assure growth. This is why the company’s continuous growth comes as no surprise. Cellco Partnership, doing business as Verizon Wireless, is known as the largest mobile network operator in the United States. The company originated as a joint venture of an American telecommunications firm, Bell Atlantic, and a global British telecommunications company, Vodafone. Verizon Communications began operating in April of 2000, and their market share has been on the rise ever since. They have even possessed the largest market share for several years, multiple times. It all started with the acquisition of GTE Wireless’ assets a few months after the start of operation. Verizon then became the largest mobile network operator in the United States. Proving that its profitability is strong, the company held this position up until Cingular acquired AT&T Wireless in 2004. Verizon managed to regain the lead once again in 2009, when they bought out Alltel, and they continue to dominate the market to this day. T-Mobile International AG is a holding company for Deutsche Telekom AG's various mobile communications subsidiaries outside Germany. The T-Mobile brand is in 11 European countries, the United Kingdom, and the United States. T-Mobile US has roots to the 1994 establishment of VoiceStream Wireless PCS as a subsidiary of Western Wireless Corporation. T-Mobile US operates the fourth and fifth largest wireless networks in the U.S. market with 45 million customers and annual revenues of $21.35 billion. The company’s nationwide network is able to reach about 96 percent of Americans, which means that there is a potential for enormous growth in their market share. They have also been ranked highest in retail-store satisfaction and wireless customer care for the past several years, giving them a slight competitive edge. With that said, T-Mobile’s profitability seems to have a bright future. Sprint Corporation is a United States telecommunications holding company that provides wireless services. Sprint Corporation took on the name of Sprint Nextel Corporation when it merged with Nextel Communications in 2005. This brand