Sprint Says, “Android Shmandroid” And Becomes Third Carrier Offering iPhone

Sprint begins selling Apple’s upcoming iPhone 5 in mid-October (along with the CDMA version of the iPhone 4), according to yesterday’s announcement in the Wall Street Journal. On one hand, this is a big win overall for Sprint who has failed to grow their subscriber base significantly since the troubled Nextel acquisition. Unfortunately, the move may also aid rival AT&T in their T-Mobile merger, as it strengthens AT&T’s claim of increasing competition. Sprint faces challenges with the higher subsidy costs of the iPhone, plus potential heavy increases in data usage.  J.P. Morgan analyst Philip Cusick estimates that AT&T currently pays Apple $400 to $425 for the iPhone 4 and $375 for the iPhone 3GS before selling them to customers for as little as $200 and $50 respectively.  In comparison, Sprint pays an estimated $150 subsidy for the new HTC Evo smartphone. The data usage, however, may pose the most serious problem for Sprint, as they’re currently the only major carrier offering true unlimited data plans with their phones.

The stock market seems pleased with the decision though, boosting Sprint stocks by 10 percent yesterday. As a Sprint customer myself, I also agree with this move. Sprint has long suffered from a lack of handset choices, further diluted by the models carried exclusively for the Nextel network. Their strongest smartphone offering is the HTC EVO 4G, a year-old model. Sprint’s new refresh offers users 3D movie viewing capabilities as its major selling point — not something driving massive upgrades, especially for corporate customers. Meanwhile, the Sprint 4G network (actually handled by ClearWire’s WiMax technology) is going away, to be superseded by LTE. Even if Sprint can’t bring on significant numbers of new subscribers with the iPhone, it certainly helps retain folks like myself not necessarily thrilled with any of Sprint’s Android-based phone offerings.