Sprint to Sell Itself to Softbank? [REPORT]

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Sprint -- the third largest carrier in the U.S. mobile phone market -- is in talks to sell a majority of the company to Japanese telecom giant Softbank, it was reported Thursday.

Japan's TV network NHK says Softbank, a $43 billion company, is eyeing a two-thirds stake in Sprint Nextel -- a deal that would be worth about $13 billion.

Sprint has 55 million customers, and made $33 billion in revenue last year.

Softbank has a long history of buying stakes in (and making partnerships with) U.S. companies. It bought a 14% chunk of UStream in 2010, and was the first Japanese mobile provider to sell the iPhone back in 2007.

There were rumors in 2011 that Softbank (along with Alibaba) was planning to purchase Yahoo; that came to naught. Softbank does own a one-third stake in Yahoo Japan.

Sprint paid a high price to become the third carrier in the U.S. -- after AT&T and Verizon -- to offer the iPhone, starting with the iPhone 4S. It recently rolled out its first superfast LTE service in 10 US cities, and announced it would add 100 more.