by DrPrepaid on July 28, 2010
Sprint Nextel reported positive net adds for the second quarter of this year, first time in three years. Unsurprisingly, the net adds came courtesy of Sprint’s prepaid and wholesale divisions. Total net adds came in at 111,000 subscribers. Sprint lost 228,000 postpaid customers yet gained 173,000 prepaid subscribers and 166,000 wholesale subscribers in the period.
With a recent refresh of the Virgin Mobile offering and national availability of Boost unlimited everything on the CDMA side of the network, Sprint will be looking for the two brands to drive growth. Sprint’s HTC Evo (the nation’s first 4G device) also contributed to reducing losses in postpaid. The companies ARPU went down a notch, however, the churn is at an all time low.
So what’s next for Sprint? A few options: a merger with T-Mobile, which will put the new entity on par with the nation’s two largest carriers, AT&T and Verizon, acquisition of Cricket, further solidifying Sprint’s leadership in prepaid under multiple brands; or an all-out shift towards prepaid while bringing postpaid down to the $50 all-you-can-eat realm.
That said, score another point into the prepaid margin.
by DrPrepaid on July 26, 2010
Verizon has brought a new plan to market under the radar that features unlimited talking and text messaging for $49.99 in 11 states in the Southeast. The plan is only available through calling Verizon’s customer service, and is absent from online and retail stores. Though Verizon did confirm the existence of this limited offering, there isn’t much detail out there but surely information will emerge very soon.
It comes as no surprise that Verizon has introduced such a plan as the reasons are many. Exhibit (A) is T-Mobile’s $49.99 unlimited talk and text offering. Exhibit (B) – and this is the big one – is driven by Verizon’s own numbers in Q1 and Q2. Look no further than the company’s 665,000 retail postpaid net additions for the second quarter out of a total 1.4 million total net adds. That’s less than 50% (47.5% to be exact). The retail net adds weren’t that much better in the first quarter of the year either. A healthy chunk of Verizon adds are coming courtesy of StarightTalk, Tracfone’s “unlimited everything” offering available at WalMart for $45 a month. That’s where the market is going. Verizon understands that, but the shift from full-on postpaid to prepaid overnight isn’t something an 800 pound gorilla can pull off gracefully.
Expect more aggressive play from the big four in prepaid over the next few months. These are exciting times in wireless, especially in the prepaid space as consumers are finally given great options outside the boundaries of long-term contracts.
