T-Mobile prepaid adds subscribers, ditches iPhone users

We kick off this Friday with a bit of news on T-Mobile. Over the past few quarters, we’ve seen T-Mo add more prepaid subscribers than postpaid. Of the Big Four carriers, they are the only self-branded prepaid service which has done this. That trend continued in Q2 2009, as only 17 percent of T-Mo’s 325,000 subscribers were of postpaid ilk. That means nearly 270,000 of the adds were prepaid, which puts T-Mobile up there with the likes of Cricket and MetroPCS. While the company plans to add devices, like the MyTouch and eventually the BlackBerry 9700, to boost postpaid sales, perhaps T-Mobile is better off focusing on the sector which is powering the majority of their quarterly adds.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear that T-Mo is thinking this way. Instead of embracing prepaid subscribers, they seem to be shunning them in ways. For instance, they recently discontinued service for iPhone users on Sidekick plans. Why they did this is unclear. But they did send out a message on their Twitter account that they would no longer allow unlocked iPhones to use the Sidekick plan. That’s a shame, because the plan meshed so well with the iPhone.

It’s strange to see T-Mobile act this way, and it makes me wonder if something else is afoot. Why would they tell iPhone customers to stop paying them a dollar a day to use the network? This goes especially because T-Mobile is benefitting so much from prepaid users. If it weren’t for them, T-Mo’s subscriber stats would look pretty puny. Anyone care to speculate a reason behind the maneuver?

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2 Responses

1. Christopher Price Says
   

   It appears that T-Mobile feared the aircard crowd leveraging Sidekick prepaid. With so many 3G devices being able to sling internet to a laptop, the idea of having a cheap phone (like the Nokia 3555) replacing a 3G aircard, could have a chilling effect on their bottom line.

   Think about it. If people wised up to that they could pay $30/month instead of $60/month, that would greatly outweigh the revenue profit from Sidekick prepaid.

   Unfortunately, what T-Mobile doesn’t get is that, thanks to the FCC… you can use a standard data plan as a modem (per the Comcast/BitTorrent ruling).

   So, customers will just leave T-Mobile for data-only plans like Sprint Relay. They’ll keep paying $30/month, legally bypass Sprint’s phone-as-modem plan requirements, and keep on tethering.

   And T-Mobile will then really miss making a $1/day. A 50% reduction in mobile data profits is a lot better than a 100% loss.

   
   Posted on August 17th, 2009 at 5:13 am
2. Dawn Says
   

   Maybe they need to focus on changing they’re prepaid plans. It sucks IMO… A $1 a day plus buying the minutes(which also suck), do the calculation. Better off with Boost or Metropcs. The only positive with tmobile is they’re unlimited after 7pm

   
   Posted on August 20th, 2009 at 11:04 pm

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