“What’s the next trend I see coming? iPad subsidies,” A. I. Houriani writes for Seeking Alpha.
“My analysis for this came from applying the customer lifetime value approach, which is a new shift in the business model, viewing customers in terms of how valuable they are in their lifetimes as loyal customers,” Houriani explains. “Essentially, it’s a simple finance question: finding the net present value of the profit per customer. This approach is a far cry from the traditional business model of making a quick sale and moving on and finding a new customer. Instead, as much research has shown, it’s cheaper and more profitable for the firm to retain customers and ‘milk’ them throughout their lifetimes. This approach has really gained traction in just the past two decades, as competition has become fierce.”
Houriani writes, “In Verizon’s last financial report, it reported that data revenue, as a percentage of total service revenue, increased from 38.1% to 42.9% quarter-over-quarter. This dramatic increase signifies the future of where service providers are heading to supply customer demand: data-plan servicing. As competition increases in the data plan market, capital expenditure will increase dramatically with it, in efforts to reduce their cost per gigabyte of data. This will become so fierce that large providers like Verizon and AT&T may have to give bonus products at cost to maintain their marketshare; consequently, pushing off the weaker players from the market. It’s going to become the same situation as with the iPhone: subsidize tablets, hook the customers, and generate revenue by bundling other products and services until the providers can cut the cost of providing services to generate more profit.”
Much more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Dan K.” for the heads up.]
Not much sense unless people will start to use iPad on road more and thus agree to obligatory monthly pays (for now, those are optional). Otherwise such investments from cellphone companies will not return.
How will this fly? I purchased the first generation iPad with 3G and found that I only needed the 3G occasionally which was paid for as and when I needed it. I bought the new iPad 3 without 4G for the simple reason that I don’t need 4G everywhere I go because of the ubiquity of WiFi. So who will commit to a regular monthly payment for two years that they can’t get out of for what, $200 less than a full priced version?
I would definitely consider it for an iPad. I haven’t bought one yet, but if I did, I am away from wi-fi often enough that I’d want the 3g/4g connection, etc.
Meh. Just buy a MiFi and you can use it with multiple devices. They’re small and the price is pretty good if you’re not one of those greedy 1%-er data hogs.
I suppose if this reduced the price of the iPad to $0, and if then they allowed you to use it as a hotspot, all for a reasonable monthly plan, it might make some sense, but that’s a lot of “ifs”!
Already available in the UK, although works out expensive over the term.
Subsidies didn’t keep me strapped to Verizon’s bassackward, 1980’s, can’t even do such basics such as simultaneous voice and data network.
I would NOT want a subsidized iPad from any of these carriers. I will pay the full price without any commitment. I don’t want to be tied into yet another agreement with AT&T… or Verizon.
Bullshit.