“Sprint chief executive Dan Hesse is being watched closely by the company’s board of directors, but the CEO has to answer to investors and subscribers as well,” Zach Epstein reports for BGR.
“Last year in October, Hesse revealed that the company is placing a massive $15.5 billion bet on Apple’s iPhone, and in a recent interview with the GSMA’s Mobile World Live blog, Hesse defended the move, which has been criticized by a number of industry watchers,” Epstein reports. “‘Subsidises are heavy for the iPhone. This is the reason why a high percentage of new customers is important,’ Hesse said during the interview. ‘But iPhone customers have a lower level of churn and they actually use less data on average than a high-end 4G Android device. So from a cost point of view and a customer lifetime value perspective. They’re more profitable than the average smartphone customer.'”
Epstein reports, “esse stated that iPhone sales have ‘exceeded expectations’ thus far, and he claimed Sprint is stealing customers away from AT&T and Verizon Wireless thanks to the iPhone. ‘Four out of every 10 iPhones we sold [in the fourth quarter] are for new customers. That’s roughly double the rate of either of our competitors, so we’re pulling a lot of customers from our competitors,” he said.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Without the iPhone, Sprint was dead. So, Sprint paid dearly for the pocket computer that changed everything. It remains to be seen if they make the numbers work.
I bought one of the new for asses extremely extremely disappointed in the speed I’m lucky if I get 50 6K anywhere I go I travel all throughout the state. If the speed doesn’t change soon when the new iPhone comes out I will be canceling Sprint immediately, I always like to go with the underdog and it’s nice to have more than two horses in the race but if the horse only has three legs it’s like you know
Did you check first if there are Sprint 4G towers in your area. No towers no 4G.
If Sprint offers tethering as part of their unlimited data plan, they will win over more customers until AT&T and Verizon do the same.
I hope it works out OK for Sprint.
I got a spring iPhone 4S 🙂
Kudos to sprint. If they had to bet the company on something, the iPhone was probably the smartest choice they could have made!
I work for a Sprint Retailer and have an iPhone 4S on an employee plan. The speeds are for the most part an absolute joke. Sometimes on the speediest.net app I will get less than .1 MB down which is absolutely pathetic. If I wasn’t on this plan I would be on Verizon’s, even without unlimited data. It’s as if Sprint throttles your speeds even before you reach a certain limit. Truly terrible.
Some have alluded to the possibility of Apple buying out Sprint for cents on the dollar when they become bankrupt, I don’t know if they are but I would welcome such a move. Especially if it means all the Blandroid jockers I work with have to work for Apple.
“But iPhone customers ……… and they actually use less data on average than a high-end 4G Android device.”
That statement is counter to all of the reports I’ve seen.
It’s all those Android apps phoning home with all your personal data.
Sprint deserves to be dead. I, for one, am not pleased that their iPhone bet succeeded.
Then again, perhaps Sprint can burn off the Marketing Moron bad attitude and go sane. We’ll see!