OVERLAND PARK, Kan.—Sprint Nextel Corp. announced it will soon begin selling three of Motorola Inc.’s popular slim phones, a move those in the industry had long expected.
The announcement boosts Motorola’s position in the United States and gives Sprint Nextel a potential shot in the arm.
Sprint Nextel has largely depended on Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., LG Electronics Co. Ltd. and Sanyo Corp. to provide its handsets; the South Korean vendors, in particular, have built businesses in the United States by catering to carriers’ customization requirements. Sprint Nextel has depended on Motorola for its enterprise-oriented iDEN push-to-talk handsets, but on the CDMA side Motorola has had only one, low-end handset at the carrier.
But with Sprint Nextel struggling with slow subscriber growth and rival Verizon Wireless having clearly benefited from carrying the runaway best-seller Razr handset over the past two years, something changed.
Sprint announced that it would offer Motorola’s new Krzr, the Razr’s successor, as well as the Razr and Slvr handsets, all configured to provide elements of Sprint Nextel’s Power Vision network, including NFL Mobile, Sprint TV, Sprint Movies, Sprint Power View and the carrier’s music store. The phones will be available from Sprint Nextel by early November, according to the carrier. All three of the devices offer cameras, phone-as-modem capabilities, Bluetooth connectivity and GPS-enabled traveling directions. Pricing was not announced. The Krzr just launched at Verizon Wireless last week, priced at $200 with a two-year contract. The Razr V3m sells at Verizon Wireless for $100 (pink goes for $130).
“Sprint is proud of our long relationship with Motorola,” said Oliver Valente, senior vice president for product development at Sprint. “We look forward to adding Krzr, Razr and Slvr to our portfolio very soon.”
Sprint also recently launched a Samsung “International Smart Device” at $600 that uses Sprint Nextel’s CDMA network in the United States and roams on CDMA or GSM networks outside the country. The carrier also recently introduced the Research In Motion Ltd. BlackBerry 8703e at $350 and the Sanyo SCP-8400 handset at $100 with $30 mail-in rebate.
