Consider Sprint’s race complete. The wireless company will sell the new Apple iPhone 5 when it debuts in mid-October. This is a huge boon for the beleaguered No. 3 U.S. carrier, which has just 52 million subscribes compared to market leader Verizon’s 106 million and runner-up AT&T’s 99 million.
In the past few years, both Verizon and AT&T have used the iPhone to drive sales, and both carriers will have the iPhone 5, which will come out about a month later than expected. The new iPhone will help Sprint retain its customers that previously left for Verizon and AT&T and get new ones into the store. One analyst estimated Sprint might sell up to 6 million iPhones in 2012 and increasing total sales about 5 percent.
Sprint has so far stayed mum on pricing. Given how Verizon responded when it started selling the iPhone, it’s reasonable to assume that Sprint’s prices will match Verizon and AT&T. Sprint’s data plans are similar to the other two carriers, too, but data plans might soon changing across the wireless industry with fewer unlimited data and text-messaging options.
Read more at The Wall Street Journal.
