With a new iPhone (News - Alert) here, it's easy for carriers to consider the situation and realize there's an opportunity afoot to gain some new subscribers. Not without reason, of course—a new iPhone commonly gets users interested in buying new one in the first place—but especially these days, a good chunk of those customers might be inclined to wait without some proper incentives to prime the pump, so to speak. But T-Mobile (News - Alert) is eager to land some of those new customers, and is prepared with a set of incentives to drive the operation home.
T-Mobile, essentially, doesn't have a plan to lure customers to its network now that the new iPhone has debuted. But what it does have is everybody else's plan, and then some. See, what T-Mobile has in mind is to offer up a means to match, and beat, anyone else's trade-in offer. What a user need do is go to a part of T-Mobile's site to figure out the trade-in value of the current device the user has in place. Then, should that user go to AT&T, Sprint (News - Alert) or Verizon and get a better deal within seven days of getting the T-Mobile offer, T-Mobile will not only refund the difference in trade-in offers, but will also offer up a $50 credit that applies to a future bill.
The down side to this approach is that T-Mobile is only running this offer with carriers, not with stores that traffic in used electronics. For instance, while T-Mobile would offer $150 for an iPhone 5 with 32 gigabytes of storage, Best Buy (News - Alert) would offer $225. But T-Mobile wouldn't match the Best Buy offer, as Best Buy isn't a carrier.
Those interested won't have long to wait; the offer starts up September 17, just days before the next iPhone goes on sale. Reports also suggest the company is planning an announcement event for September 10 in San Francisco, so there may well be a bit of augmentation coming to this version soon.
The world of mobile carriers and accompanying device sales has always been somewhat cutthroat; ever since T-Mobile got its shot at being an iPhone carrier last year, T-Mobile has been aggressively working to get users on board, from loaner iPhone 5C models to “try out” T-Mobile's network, price reductions, and even down payment waivers, T-Mobile has clearly been eagerly seeking out new sources of business. But then, such a thing was likely necessary, given how much of the mobile device field is offering iPhones; getting some kind of competitive distinction involved in the process was likely more a matter of sheer necessity than anything else. Still, points to T-Mobile for sheer boldness; it's clearly eager to get in fresh business and it's not afraid of making the big moves to get there.
Only time will tell, naturally, just how well this approach works. But it certainly has the audacity to be a very big move indeed, and might well help T-Mobile make a push on the third place slot in terms of United States mobile coverage. T-Mobile's approach doesn't lack for guts, but it may end up lacking for results.
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Edited by Rory J. Thompson
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