Sprint has been at the heart of the very competitive wireless industry in the United States. Along with T-Mobile, Sprint has been shaking up the wireless industry and there’s no hint at them slowing down anytime soon. Sprint has been touting their half off promotion for those looking to switch from T-Mobile, Verizon or AT&T. Now while the company’s CEO, Marcelo Claure had mentioned before that they wouldn’t be around forever, Claure did confirm today at an investors conference that this promo will stick around through the holiday season.
Throughout this price war that T-Mobile and Sprint have been involved in, for the past year or two, the two companies have steadily been bringing out new plans without replacing old ones. T-Mobile recently got rid of all of their plans and opted for just one plan under T-Mobile One. In which everyone gets unlimited data. Sprint was looking to do the same, eliminate a number of their available plans, in an effort to keep from confusing a potential customer. But the half off promotion will stick around for a bit longer, due to how successful it has been for Sprint.
Those customers that don’t read the fine print, when signing up with Sprint under their promotion, won’t realize that their prices do double after two years. But it’s enough to get customers in the door. Which is exactly what Sprint is looking to do with this promotion. The reason for keeping it around through the end of the year is because the fourth quarter is typically the biggest quarter for wireless carriers – and many other businesses. With many smartphones being announced and becoming available in September and October, it sets Sprint (and other carriers) up for a successful November and December with the busy holiday season.
Sprint has been working on a pretty big turnaround effort, like T-Mobile has been. Sprint has a bit of a different challenge and that’s their network. With T-Mobile, they needed to get more coverage in rural areas as well as setting up a 4G LTE network. With Sprint, their issue is more in capacity and densification – they have the coverage, but speeds are slow due to the number of connections on each tower. Something that Claure has been working hard on since he was installed as CEO of the company in 2014.