“In conjunction with its ‘uncarrier’ strategy with lower monthly service-plan fees, T-Mobile USA announced it will start carrying the iPhone on April 12,” Shaw Wu, Sterne Agee Leach analyst, writes for Barron’s.
“We view this as positive as it allows Apple to gain market share in the U.S. with an additional 42 million subscribers. We also believe this should help Apple’s June-quarter outlook, which most expect to be very conservative due to weak build plan data ahead of new iPhone refreshes,” Wu writes. “We continue to see Apple as a second-half story with several catalysts.”
Wu writes, “While T-Mobile has lost customers, its core customer base remains loyal to its lower-cost and unlimited data plans. We believe this will help Apple capture incremental customers and strengthen its position against Google (GOOG) Android, which got its start on T-Mobile.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: It will be interesting to see how well T-Mobile USA does with their new pricing scheme combined with finally being able to offer Apple’s iPhone.
MacDailyNews Note: 40,000! Whew!
Yea, except that T-Mobile ISN’T CHEAPER! Look, take the price of the iPhone and add $60/month times 24 months and it comes out more expensive than Verizon.
It’s all a scam. Nothing to see here, people. Just move along…
But look at all the subscribers with expiring AT&T contracts that dont want to buy another phone… iPhone or another…
A win for T-Mobile…
But a win for Apple too… the customers pay for the phone… not the whiny carrier that complains about subsidies.
Wrong.. You will spend 20 times 24 months at Verizon and T Mobile. That’s 480, but the down payment is 99 instead of 199. I, fir example, pay 70 times 2 lines for limited voice, no texting and 2 GBs of data. On T Mobile i can get unlimited voice, text and 2.5 GBs of data for 60 or, for an additional $10, get unlimited data. Add the second line for my wife for $30 and, if I want, $10 for mire data for her and still come out ahead. Having run all rhe numbers, I will be saving roughly $700 over the course of 2 years.
You guys are comparing apples and oranges.
Verizon, AT&T and Sprint have contract-based subsidy plans where packages include limited minutes, no texting and limited bucket of data. If you go over that bucket, you pay exorbitant charges for each MB beyond the limit (and in some cases, you just don’t get any data service).
T-Mobile gives you UNLIMITED data. It does throttle the speed if you exceed the traffic threshold ($500MB for $50, 2GB for $60), but it does NOT cut off your data, or (even worse) charge arm and a leg for extra MB used beyond that.
Verizon’s prepaid plan that best compares with T-Mobile is $70 per month. Unlike T-Mobile, which has unlimited data, Verizon caps it at 2GB (or 400MB, for $60). However, that prepaid plan requires a full up-front purchase of the phone. So, voice and text are unlimited, plus:
Verizon: $60 for $500MB, $5 for each 100MB over
T-Mobile: $50 for unlimited data, throttled down after 500GB
or
Verizon: $70 for 2GB, $5 for each 100MB over
T-Mobile: $60 for unlimited data, throttled down after 2GB
How is Verizon cheaper here?
I have Sprint’s “Truly Unlimited” plan. Unlimited SMS is included. No throttling or overages for data. Free-mobile-to-mobile, free nights and weekends for voice.
I rarely go anywhere near my 450 monthly voice minutes. I’ve been a data-heavy subscriber since 2000. Those were the days of nasty data overages because data was charged by the minute.
Number 40,000? Wow! Congrats, MDN!
Now we just need china mobile and NTT Docomo to come on board.