{"id":9992,"date":"2012-12-07T12:37:02","date_gmt":"2012-12-07T12:37:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.tmcnet.com\/blog\/rich-tehrani\/e-commerce\/t-mobile_finally_gets_the_iphone.html"},"modified":"2022-10-14T18:43:26","modified_gmt":"2022-10-14T22:43:26","slug":"t-mobile-finally-gets-the-iphone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.tmcnet.com\/blog\/rich-tehrani\/technology\/t-mobile-finally-gets-the-iphone.html","title":{"rendered":"T-Mobile Finally Gets the iPhone"},"content":{"rendered":"

While spending time in a T-Mobile and Verizon store in the same city\"iphone5.png\" recently I couldn’t help but notice the customers at the Verizon stores were dressed better and seemed far more affluent. This makes sense as T-Mobile offers cheaper service and it is common for people who can’t afford an AT&T or Verizon data plan to unlock an iPhone from AT&T and activate it on T-Mobile. They then access data when WiFi is available for free.<\/p>\n

The latest research<\/a> I found<\/a> from Strategy Analytics<\/a> has the spread in ARPU or average revenue per user between these two carriers at $11.45<\/strong> per month or almost $140 per year. And this spread has grown from $9.15<\/strong> just two quarters ago.<\/p>\n

T-Mobile has said there are customer who wouldn’t even consider the carrier<\/a> because they didn’t have the iPhone and since the typical Apple customers is above-average in affluence, this makes sense. So now that T-Mobile will be selling<\/a> Apple products, it will likely put additional pressure on the data plan prices of AT&T, Verizon and now Sprint who recently started selling Apple products as well.<\/p>\n

Moreover, the German-backed company will stop subsidizing devices<\/a> and instead sell through installment plans. Expect to see offers where you can pay perhaps $100 up front and spread the remaining payments over 20 months or so. This and a new ad campaign<\/a> designed to be “in your face” will position the wireless network operator as the “Un-Carrier.”<\/p>\n

There is no doubt a renewed energy at T-Mobile and its parent, Deutsche Telecom as a result of the Softbank investment<\/a> in Sprint. There is nothing like the competition making a huge bet on something to get the rest of the market excited about the same opportunity.<\/p>\n

In Fairfield County, CT where TMC is headquartered, T-Mobile is likely the worst of the four major wireless carriers based on my experience but the company is improving its coverage and has a huge opportunity to gain share by continuing to offer lower prices than the competition.<\/p>\n

This news will likely also expose the company to wealthier customers as everyone (even those buying an Apple product) seems to like a bargain.<\/p>\n

As an aside I find it ironic that the major carrier to be first with Google integration in one of their phones was the last to get Apple products.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While spending time in a T-Mobile and Verizon store in the same city recently I couldn’t help but notice the customers at the Verizon stores were dressed better and seemed far more affluent. This makes sense as T-Mobile offers cheaper service and it is common for people who can’t afford an AT&T or Verizon data<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[166,158,168,118,174,175],"tags":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.tmcnet.com\/blog\/rich-tehrani\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9992"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.tmcnet.com\/blog\/rich-tehrani\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.tmcnet.com\/blog\/rich-tehrani\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.tmcnet.com\/blog\/rich-tehrani\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.tmcnet.com\/blog\/rich-tehrani\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9992"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.tmcnet.com\/blog\/rich-tehrani\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9992\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19167,"href":"https:\/\/blog.tmcnet.com\/blog\/rich-tehrani\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9992\/revisions\/19167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.tmcnet.com\/blog\/rich-tehrani\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.tmcnet.com\/blog\/rich-tehrani\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.tmcnet.com\/blog\/rich-tehrani\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}