T-Mobile started selling the iPhone 4, 4S and 5 on Friday, April 12. There were reports of small lines at T-Mobile stores and that it would have 240,000 iPhones available on the first day. T-Mobile’s web site had shipping times of 2 to 4 days and T-Mobile configured iPhones are not available on the Apple website.
Image via CrunchBase
CJ Takeaway: T-Mobile is the last major U.S. carrier to carry the iPhone which should have a small incremental benefit to Apple as T-Mobile was losing customers to the other carriers who had the iPhone. Now those customers can stay with T-Mobile and Apple should benefit from the customers that want to stay on T-Mobile’s network and were choosing a competitors smartphone. T-Mobile will also try and be disruptive to the other carriers by offering lower priced plans but it doesn’t have as broad of 4G coverage as the other carriers.
T-Mobile is offering trade in discounts and credits and lower cost usage plans. If you bring in an iPhone 4S you can get an iPhone 5 without paying the usual $99.99 initial payment and also receive a $120 credit toward future bills.
The cost of my family’s Verizon plan with four phones and 4GB of shared data is $230. When I configured T-Mobile its price would be $180 per month with unlimited data.
Disclosure: My family and I own Apple shares
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