T-Mobile CEO John Legere’s crazy antics aren’t looking so funny right now to industry giant Verizon.
Verizon’s stock dropped 1.3 percent on Tuesday amid growing fears the country’s No. 1 wireless carrier will be forced to enter a price war with Legere’s T-Mobile.
The No. 4 largest carrier has been actively luring customers away from its rivals with plans that do away with contracts and other burdensome mobile phone obligations.
More recently, Legere promised to pay up to $350 in early termination fees to AT&T, Sprint or Verizon customers who make the jump to T-Mobile.
The company has also been rubbing its victories in rivals’ faces by posting a collection of farewell letters and pictures from newly acquired customers on Twitter.
Verizon’s shares, which were off more than 3 percent during the day, closed Tuesday at $47.70.
Verizon actually reported good results for 2013, with its $5.07 billion in profit handily beating Wall Street expectations.
The company posted a loss of $4.23 billion a year earlier.
Verizon also added 1.6 million new wireless customers, down from 2.1 million added a year ago — but above Wall Street’s expectations of 1.3 billion.
Still, questions about pricing loomed over results, prompting CFO Francis Shammo to raise the issue of “a price war” before dismissing it.
But experts say it’s real and things could become nasty.
“The complete landscape is going to get much worse this year,” said S&P IQ stock analyst James Moorman. “And it could get ugly.”
Moorman said the battle had been previously limited to AT&T and T-Mobile, but it now appears to be bleeding over to Verizon, which had long been able to resist cutting prices or lowering contract restrictions to boost its customer base.
“They started with AT&T and now they’re doing it to everybody,” Moorman said of T-Mobile.