Apple Counts on Wireless Carriers to Avoid an iPhone Slump
As Apple tries to climb out from its recent sales slump, the iPhone maker will be depending on big wireless companies to give it a hand. The iPhone 15 models unveiled Tuesday offered few big hardware upgrades aside from new casings and connector ports, but they came attached to plenty of offers bundled with U.S. wireless plans.
AT&T and Verizon kept offering iPhones to customers who trade in older devices and subscribe to more expensive wireless plans, a strategy similar to past iPhone releases. The deals nudge customers toward plans that pay off the handset purchase price over three years. T-Mobile offered similar deals for new iPhone 15 models and tied the most generous discounts to its premium plans, which encourage device upgrades every one or two years.
Dish Network’s new Boost Infinite service went a step further: It promised customers who sign up for a $60 monthly plan free iPhone upgrades each year. The upgrade plans aim to address a conundrum that has hurt sales for all kinds of smartphones: Many users are happy with the devices they have. “People just aren’t getting as many smartphones as they used to," said Jeff Moore, an analyst at Wave7 Research.
“They’re all slabs of glass that largely look alike. The lack of differentiation helps lower upgrade rates." Apple has worked closely with the wireless industry ever since AT&T won the exclusive right in the U.S. to market the first iPhone in 2007.
The co-dependence between the smartphone maker and its network partners has since broadened and deepened to include aggressive trade-in deals, joint spending on advertising and carrier marketing of add-on media services. Wireless carriers accounted for nearly four of every five U.S. iPhone sales during the June quarter,
. Read more on livemint.com
