T-Mobile’s new contract-free plans might have garnered most of the attention after the company’s big announcement last month, but there is another part that will start making an impact soon. On Friday, after nearly six years without, T-Mobile will finally offer the iPhone. And they aren’t taking it lightly.
Earlier this week we saw Virgin Mobile take a shot at T-Mobile with an intriguing comparison chart. Included with it was a $100 offer to switch from T-Mobile to Virgin Mobile. As I mentioned in the post, this is a tactic we typically see from smaller carriers seeking to steal business from larger ones. T-Mobile still sits firmly as the No. 4 carrier in the nation, so it has plenty of competition from above. Like Virgin, it plans to take on that competition with an incentive.
Plenty of people already own the iPhone, and T-Mobile knows that. Why, then, would they come to them for iPhone service? The pricing, only $100 up front and $20 per month, might be one attractive factor. Not satisfied with just this, T-Mobile is offering a $100 trade-in credit. Just bring an iPhone 4, 4S, or 5 when you purchase a new one and you eliminate that $100 up-front charge. It gets better than that, too. Those trading in the 4S and 5 will receive additional bonuses which can saved them even more.
The promotion not only highlights T-Mobile’s tough position in the current mobile market, but also its focus on being a value carrier. When it unveiled new plans, what stood out most was the value they provide over other plans. At $60 per month for unlimited minutes and messaging, plus 2.5GB of data, there’s not a large carrier in the country that can compete. Some prepaid carriers trump that offering, but they’re working off other carriers’ networks. Those with primary networks, such as Cricket and MetroPCS, don’t offer the level of coverage that T-Mobile does.
The offer runs between now and June 16, giving customers plenty of time to decide whether they’d like to trade in their old iPhone models for the new one. The only issue is that only the iPhone 4 has customers out of contract at this point. Since it was released in October of 2011, customers who upgraded still have a few months before they can exit their current plans. The trade-in credit, though, could virtually go towards an early termination fee, which can be in the double digits by this point in many contracts. The iPhone goes on sale this Friday at 9 a.m. local time.
In other T-Mobile news, their network could be getting stronger soon. For a few months now they’ve been going through the regulatory and shareholder approval processes for a merger with MetroPCS. While regulators have pushed the deal through, there has been a bit of turmoil on the shareholder side. News today suggests that T-Mobile will improve its offer for MetroPCS, perhaps allaying some concerns that MetroPCS’s top investors have expressed.
Apparently early shareholder voting hasn’t gone well, which has prompted the improved offer from T-Mobile. If some shareholders change their minds, the deal could go through quickly. The deal will be ratified or rejected at a shareholder meeting scheduled for this Friday.
The post T-Mobile Offering a Promotion of Its Own on iPhone Trade-Ins appeared first on MobileMoo.