“When Apple Inc. unveils its next iPhone on Wednesday, the biggest update may be in how most consumers will pay for the device,” Thomas Gryta and Ryan Knutson report for The Wall Street Journal. “The days of the $200 upfront payment for the latest model are mostly over. Consumers now have a dizzying array of options for getting the new device, even if they aren’t thinking about switching wireless carriers.”
“Sprint Corp. and T-Mobile US Inc. have leasing plans that can run as low as $15 a month. Verizon Communications Inc. recently stopped offering contract plans to new customers and expects that about 60% of its smartphone sales in the third quarter will be on installment purchase plans, up from 18% in the second quarter of 2014,” Gryta and Knutson report. “AT&T Inc. sold 68% of its iPhones on installment plans for the three months ended June 30.”
“Customers who have contracts and don’t want to switch carriers generally can still upgrade their iPhone for $200 at AT&T, Sprint or Verizon,” Gryta and Knutson report. “‘The whole idea is to play around with making things look cheap today,’ said Jean-Pierre H. Dubé, a marketing professor at University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business who has researched pricing. ‘Consumers just aren’t very good at anticipating the future cost,’ he said. ‘Either they don’t think of about it, or it is too complicated to calculate or they are just excited by what looks like a low price.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: If so, expect the influx of Android to iPhone upgraders to accelerate even more.
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