NTT Unit May Top Deutsche Telekom Bid for VoiceStream

TOKYO —  NTT DoCoMo Inc., the mobile phone unit of Japan’s Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corp., is considering a bid for VoiceStream Wireless Corp. that would top a reported offer from Deutsche Telekom, a person familiar with the situation said.

The Japanese company is likely to seek one or more partners, possibly Hong Kong’s Hutchison Whampoa Ltd., if it makes an offer for Bellevue, Wash.-based VoiceStream, the source said.

VoiceStream officials couldn’t be reached for comment.

NTT DoCoMo might bid as much as $200 a share, or $52 billion, for the U.S. company, beating out Deutsche Telekom’s reported $180-a-share offer, the Wall Street Journal reported earlier, citing people familiar with the matter.

The Journal also said DoCoMo might decide to team up with Hutchison, which holds 23% of VoiceStream, to take a 49% stake in the company.

NTT DoCoMo told Bloomberg News it’s exploring partnerships with several companies and declined to comment further. Hutchison declined to comment.

VoiceStream shares rose $8.69, or 6.2%, to close at $149.56 on Nasdaq.

NTT DoCoMo has said its primary purpose in forming alliances with international carriers is to promote the W-CDMA technology as a global standard.

VoiceStream uses global system for mobile communications, or GSM, the dominant digital wireless standard in Europe and Asia. That means adapting to DoCoMo’s new standard for more advanced services would be easier than adapting to a different standard.

DoCoMo was first linked with VoiceStream in May, when the Nihon Keizai newspaper said the Japanese company was in talks to buy as much as 20% of the U.S. company for about $4.6 billion.