“Get ready for another big smartphone campaign. For AT&T, it’ll be even bigger than the one for iPhone,” Kunur Patel reports for Advertising Age.
“In the coming months, AT&T will kick in as much as $150 million to help launch Nokia’s Windows Phone Lumia 900, Ad Age has learned, topping its outlay for the ubiquitous Apple device,” Patel reports. “Big backing was a no-brainer for Nokia and Microsoft, players that have been pummeled in the extremely competitive, extremely lucrative smartphone market and are teaming up to compete with Apple, Samsung and Google. Less obvious is that the device may be equally crucial for AT&T, the phone’s sole carrier.”
Patel reports, “Blame it on iPhone. Since AT&T had to start sharing the Apple product with Verizon early last year, its biggest rival has been adding smartphone subscribers faster. That’s trouble, because carriers are looking to smartphone owners’ profitable data plans to propel growth as other revenue streams dry up. This February, about a year after iPhone became available on Verizon, its smartphone subscribers had increased 81%, to 32.2 million. Though AT&T’s smartphone pool is still larger, it grew only 37% in the period, to 33.8 million. Now that Verizon is nipping at its heels, AT&T needs another dog in the smartphone fight.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Oh, they got a dog alright.
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