Cingular Raises At&T Wireless Bid

This article is about Cingular Wireless and Vodafone Group's bids to buy out AT&T Wireless. Cingular and Vodafone are arch rivals and are both trying to buy out AT&T Wireless. As of right now the second largest U.S. cell phone group Cingular, bid for AT&T is $38 billion dollars, and the world's largest mobile phone group Vodafone, is expected to at least meet the offer. AT&T is apparently hurting financially because of a fourth quarter loss of nearly 40% of its customers. Vodafone already owns a 45% stake in U.S. mobile phone leader Verizon Wireless, but some Vodafone investors are concerned about the bold offer to buy AT&T Wireless, but this would give the company the control of a company in the U.S. which would spread its name across the Atlantic even more. Some argue that Vodafone's bid is unnecessary because of the stake they have in number one ranked Verizon Wireless, and that trying to buy AT&T is an attempt to build up a market share. Some analysts say that Vodafone's bid would hurt its earnings, and that they would be reduced by 10-15% for about 4 years. In my opinion Cingular will probably win the bid simply because of investor support. Cingular has lots of investor support and could cut costs by 3 billion with the takeover of AT&T Wireless. Ultimately this will all lead to lower cell phone bills, this would cause lower prices because of the freedom to move your cell phone number from one carrier to the other. Since the bidding begun the stock of AT&T has risen to almost $12 a share.