The clock struck midnight for former Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg (pictured), but the proverbial writing was on the wall for some time.

The mobile operator announced yesterday (6 August) former PayPal chief Dan Schulman replaced Vestberg after he served as CEO of the mobile operator for seven years.

Analysts contacted by Mobile World Live (MWL) are, for the most part, not surprised Verizon moved on from Vestberg.

Wave7 Research analyst Jeff Moore told MWL the move is not a great surprise, as Verizon’s results in recent years have lagged behind those of its peers.

“Verizon is trying a great many things to reverse that decline, ranging from the five-year guarantee to the new bill comparison effort to a free line offer in June,” Moore said. “It has essentially lost its best network positioning and is scrambling for a way to differentiate itself.”

While Verizon is battling diminishing post-paid subscribers, rival T-Mobile US is racking up new customers.

To add insult to injury, Verizon lost its crown as the premiere 5G network in the US, which T-Mobile US laid claim to earlier this year.

AvidThink founder and principal Roy Chua told MWL Verizon has been underperforming across many areas while Vestberg’s recent move to buy Frontier Communications was panned by most analysts.  

“I don’t think this was a surprise,” Chua said. “His tenure from 2018 to 2025 failed to prevent Verizon’s slide from market leader to third-place competitor. It was marked by missteps in a 5G deployment overfocused on mmWave, premature investment in 5G edge, massive subscriber losses in 2022 and 2023 with ongoing churn, and a costly $52.9 billion C-band spectrum investment that wasn’t well managed.”

He also noted Verizon trails T-Mobile across fixed wireless access customer gains.

Roger Entner, founder and analyst at Recon Analytics, told MWL while Vestberg seemingly had the board of directors on his side, the upcoming Q3 results led to him being replaced.

“The move was both a surprise and not at the same time,” Entner explained.

Uphill climb for Schulman
Chua noted T-Mobile’s structural advantage in mid-band spectrum, including 2.5GHz, its smart bet on the company’s layer-cake 5G spectrum strategy, its T-Satellite service with Starlink and the company’s 5G Advanced roll-out “is going to make Schulman’s job particularly hard”.

“For the incoming Schulman, a focus on customer experience and providing improved value versus the recent price hikes and bill purchases that upset many customers will be important,” Chua stated.

During his stint as CEO of PayPal, Chua noted Schulman successfully managed subscription and recurring revenue models which are similar to telecom.

“His 18 years at AT&T, the founding CEO of Virgin Mobile USA from startup to $1.3 billion and Sprint prepaid experience should be helpful,” Chua said. “Plus, his seven years on Verizon’s board, including recent elevation to lead independent director, adds institutional knowledge which reduces his learning curve.

“However, PayPal grew in an expanding market with digital payments adoption accelerating while telecom is mature and the competition is fierce.”

Entner agreed with Chua about Schulman putting a greater focus on customers going forward but stated he “will have to right the ship and make significant changes”.