Sprint offers guaranteed pricing on Apple iPhone line, countering recent T-Mobile US promo
Apple’s iconic iPhone device lineup is again at the center of a domestic carrier’s latest promotional effort, this time by Sprint.
The carrier announced that beginning Aug. 17, new and upgrade-eligible current customers can pick up an iPhone 6 16 GB model at a lease price of $22 per month. Customers will then be able to upgrade to a base-level iPhone when new ones become available at the same $22 per month fee. Apple has recently been rolling out a new iPhone model every year.
For a limited time, Sprint is offering a discounted per-month fee of $15 for new and upgrade-eligible current customers who move on the offer before Dec. 31. This includes the ability to pick up the current iPhone 6 before a new model rolls out, which is expected to occur late next month, and upgrade to the newly launched model before Dec. 31, keeping the $15 per month charge until a new iPhone rolls out, theoretically in 2016.
To take advantage of either offer, new customers need to trade in their current device or upgrade-eligible Sprint customers need to take advantage of that eligibility and turn in their current Sprint device.
The offer can be combined with any of Sprint’s rate plans, including its $60 per month “unlimited” offer, resulting in a total monthly price of $75 per month before taxes. That price would then increase to $82 per month once the customer upgrades to a new iPhone in 2016.
Sprint recently killed off its previously offered “iPhone for Life” promotion in favor of newly aligned “All-In” rate plans that basically increased the monthly price of iPhone-powered unlimited plans from $70 to $80 per month. The change aligned pricing for all of Sprint’s smartphones.
T-Mobile US earlier this summer launched an iPhone promotion that through Sept. 8 allowed customers to pick up an iPhone 6 beginning at $15 per month over an 18-month term. The offer requires customers to either keep the device through the full 18 months before trading it in on a new device or keeping the device, or they can pay off the full remaining balance on the device at any time for a trade-in on a new device.
T-Mobile US last month updated the promotion by letting customers upgrade to Apple’s expected next model iteration for no charge by the end of the year. Customers taking the promotion are able to lock in the same $15 per month price for the basic iPhone model as well as garner “priority” access to the next iPhone model if they place an order within the first 48 hours of availability when it’s unveiled.
Investors appeared approving of Sprint’s latest move, with the carrier’s stock price (S) trading up around 5% early Monday. Sprint’s stock has slowly bounced back from a new 52-week low posted in late July when it touched $3.10 per share.
Sprint parent company, Softbank, last week increased its stake in the carrier to 80% in a move that boosted Sprint’s stock by 8%.
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