A new report claims that T-Mobile is closing a large number of Metro by T-Mobile stores.

According to the National Wireless Independent Dealer Association, T-Mobile has sent 120-day termination letters to anywhere between 5-15% of Metro by T-Mobile stores owned by large dealers, stores near the end of their lease, and stores that are low performers. The NWIDA says that it’s heard this info from multiple sources.

This comes after Peter Adderton, founder of Boost Mobile, tweeted that T-Mobile is closing down 1,500 to 2,000 stores that exclusively sell Metro by T-Mobile. The NWIDA report doesn’t have an exact number of stores but says that 1,500 is possible, adding that some T-Mobile stores will be closed as well.

Meanwhile, FierceWireless chimed in to say that according to its sources, it’s not a coincidence that these Metro by T-Mobile store closures are coming 1 month after T-Mobile and Sprint officially closed their merger. Those tipsters also claim that the ongoing coronavirus pandemic is not to blame for these store closures.

Adderton adds that he expects the store closures to affect around 6,000 people.

Stores closing and people losing their jobs is always disappointing to see, but these reports of Metro by T-Mobile stores is likely to be especially frustrating for a lot of people because T-Mo and Sprint regularly said that their merger would create jobs when they were working to get the deal done. In its original announcement of the Sprint merger, T-Mobile pointed to its merger with MetroPCS as evidence that it should combine with Sprint, saying that the MetroPCS deal “resulted in substantial job growth.”

When I contacted T-Mobile about these reports of Metro by T-Mobile store closures, a spokesperson gave the following statement:

“We are always optimizing our retail footprint as a normal course of business to ensure we are in the best position to support the thousands of communities we serve across the U.S. We recently notified some dealer stores that we will transition them to T-Mobile stores and we will also close a small number of redundant locations.”

Via: FierceWireless
Sources: NWIDA, Peter Adderton (Twitter)